Mnangagwa sucked in gold mine wrangle

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been sucked into a messy gold mine wrangle between a war veteran and a foreigner, a development that could be an acid test to the president in the wake of his bid to court foreign direct investment.

In a letter sent to Mnangagwa sighted by Southern News, one of the parties involved in the nasty ruction implored the president to intervene and stop his liquidation as a result.

George Prokopos, through one of his local proxies, is seeking help from the president to halt one local war veteran Blessing Ndiweni — who is also a Zanu-PF member — from disturbing his gold mining adventure at Fort Rixon Mine.

Prokopos, who is out of the country after his resident permit expired, argued that his ex-partner — Ndiweni — is trying to elbow him out of his company using political connections.

"The above matter refers to serious intimidation and harassment of one George Prokopos, a foreign investor who has interests in Mushly Investments — a custom milling company based in Fort Rixon — by one former local partner Blessing Ndiweni who claims to be a war veteran and well-connected in both the ruling party and government which has forced the investor to flee the country," reads part of the letter by Abishayi Maketshemu, one of Prokopos' proxies in Zimbabwe.

Prokopos further states that State intelligence agents coerced him to re-incooperate Ndiweni into his mining adventures, after he initially fired the war veteran on accusations of fraud.

"Blessing Ndiweni, with help of (members of the president's department), forced Mr Prokopos to sign an affidavit declaring the restoration of Ndiweni as a shareholder who was fired for theft and abuse of company funds and the group threatened him that without signing the document his permit will not be renewed, up to date it has not been. Fearing for his life he ran away from Zimbabwe," Maketshemu said in his letter.

Maketshemu further noted that Prokopos recently signed a power of attorney authorising him to run his investment pending his return.

"We therefore request your good office to urgently intervene and curb this rot which is cancerous and detrimental to the objective of attracting foreign direct investment. We hope your office deals with this matter with the urgency it deserves to avoid the investor engaging his embassy. He failed to get help from any other office in the country which he has been to," he said.

Ndiweni, however, hit back saying the allegations raised against him were disingenuous as he co-owned the mining company with Prokopos.

"I never stole any mine or what, its people who are against me who are creating lies and peddling them as the truth," Ndiweni told Southern News.

"The truth is that this was a joint business adventure between me and Mr Prokopos. Unfortunately, my partner turned on me and tried to get rid of me," he added.

The combative Ndiweni defiantly stated that Prokopos has been trying to reach out to him to make peace.

"As of 2016, I had taken leave to focus on other business adventures and now I am back at the mine and gathered my partner's residence permit had expired and he had left Zimbabwe to process his papers from his native country," said Ndiweni.

He added: "For your own information, before Mr Prokopos left the country, he signed on his own his accord an affidavit stating that he had abused me in attempts to block me from the mine.

"To that end, he promised to pay $5 000 in damages. I am waiting for him to come back to the country and we resolve the wrangle. I am more than willing to work with him. I have nothing against him. We started this mine together and why would I want to harm him."