Nyarota misappropriated donor funds, barred from Daily News

Veteran and controversial journalist Geoffrey Nyarota may never return to the Daily News paper's editorial team after being barred following accusations that the award winning journalist misappropriated donor funds.

Sources at Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) – publishers of The Daily News – said Nyarota was all along tipped to be the Editor-In-Chief but 'revelations' of financial misuse cost him the job. Nyarota was fired from the Daily News in 2002 and he fled to South Africa before proceeding to the United States.

Having been at Harvard University in the US and returning in 2010 to revive the Daily News, he had been running a website, the Zimbabwe Times,  then turned into a Daily News site and was a reported source of contention.

After Nyarota's fall-out with the ANZ, John Gambanga was then appointed the editor after the struggling Daily News was granted a licence in May 2010 having been closed for almost seven years since 2003 under the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

Sources allege that Nyarota abused funds poured by donors towards the Zimbabwe Times project, a move which it is claimed angered the funders and closed doors on him from heading once Zimbabwe's best selling daily.

The amount of money allegedly abused by Nyarota is not yet clear although it is said to be running into thousands of United States dollars.

But Nyarota, who lived in the United States from 2003 to the beginning of 2010, was hired by ANZ and brought back to Zimbabwe early last year to prepare for the re-launch of the Daily News. He a year later launched a legal challenge on the company stating that promising him a "senior position" both in management and editorial, ANZ had brought him back to Zimbabwe paying for his airfares and for the transportation of his household property to Zimbabwe.

His contract was, however, terminated after four months for allegedly failing to hand over his website, Zimbabwe Times, to ANZ as agreed, according to other sources.

"Nyarota was along supposed to come back at The Daily News as the editor but donors were reluctant to have him back because of funds misappropriation," said an ANZ source.

Nyarota, sources added is now likely to launch his own weekly paper, whose name is still shrouded in secrecy.

Efforts to get a comment from Nyarota were fruitless. The veteran journalist rose to fame after breaking a story exposing large-scale corruption involving government ministers and officials who were allocated new vehicles by Willowvale Motors in Harare. The cars would then be sold at a higher price.

Nyarota told journalists at a function to launch two books published by the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists at the Book Café last year that he was bitter for being barred from The Daily News.

"Unlike other journalists who were fired from organizations like ZBC, I was fired from The Daily News, which I formed," said Nyarota who has also been arguing he was never found guilty of any offence or brought before a disciplinary hearing hence the termination of his contract was illegal.

Meanwhile, despite Nyarota's alleged 'fall from grace', ANZ sources said The Daily News was busy recruiting and interviews were lined up. The paper, which is only online now, was expected to be the highest paying publication and would compete with the state-run Herald and Alpha Media's NewsDay but since then struggled even to pay its workers on time and only began printing in 2011.

"We have set up offices at the First Mutual Building fourth floor and everything is on track. Come 1 October(2010), we will be back on the streets," said a source last year.

After being granted a licence in May 2010, an ANZ director Jethro Goko told the media that the paper would come back with a bang. But the paper's printing activities only became successful in 2011 and in March the media commission's Godfrey Majonga recently expressed his disappointment in that despite being granted a licence to publish it was still out of print in February 2011.

Zimbabwe's media space has been opening up following the formation of a shaky coalition government by President Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai of MDC-T, and Welshman Ncube-MDC. The Zimbabwe Media Commission licenced The Daily News along with four other publications in May 2010. Many other publications have since then joined the licencing plethora.