The political motivated arrest of Mangoma is not political: Solahart Ltd

SOLAHART Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd,  the company which is suing Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma and Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission Distribution Company over a tender for a prepaid metering system, says the arrest of the minister is not politically motivated.
Mangoma was last week arrested on allegation of flouting Government tender procedures and is still in custody battling to secure his freedom on bail pending trial in July, while his trial involving the purchase of five million litres of diesel from a South African company, NOOA without going to tender opened yesterday at the High Court.
Solahart took Minister Mangoma to court last month after he instructed ZETDC to cancel the tender.
Nine companies had made their bids for the pre-paid metering system.
In its application, Solahart wants the court to order ZETDC and the State Procurement Board to announce the successful tenderer, or announce that there is no winner so that any aggrieved tenderer can take appropriate action for redress. Yesterday, Solahart managing director, Mr Bulukani Masola, told reporters that the arrest of Minister Mangoma was not politically motivated but occurred as a consequence of the action taken by his company to redress a situation created by the minister's interference in the prepayment meter tender.
Mr Masola said when he became aware of the minister's instruction to cancel the tender late August, he approached the office of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, the head of a cluster that deals with energy and infrastructure and made him aware of the issue.
"The DPM Mutambara suggested that I write to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai outlining the circumstances surrounding the nature of my complaint, requesting for his intervention," said Mr Masola.
Consequently on September 1 2010, Mr Masola wrote to the PM and copied the letter to DPM Mutambara and Minister Mangoma, stating the chronology of events leading to the cancellation of the tender. He later held meetings with the Minister of State Enterprises Mr Gordon Moyo, deputy chairperson of the Zesa board Mr Simbarashe Mangwengwende and the then chief executive officer Engineer Ben Rafemoyo.
"In all these, we also outlined the objectives of the tender and basically indicated to Prime Minister (Tsvangirai) if the tender was cancelled, these objections were not going to be met and if anything the Zesa prepayment system was going to be delayed by more than a year," he said.
Mr Masola also said he had three appointments with the Prime Minister, which were cancelled at the last minute.
After waiting for at least four months, Mr Masola said he decided to sue the minister and ZEDTC.
"It is against this background that that we want to set the record straight.
"There is nothing political about the arrest of the minister with regard to flouting the State tender procedure," said Mr Masola.
He added that the opportunity was given to the Prime Minister, DPM Mutambara and the minister to resolve the matter without going into the public domain but this was ignored.
"When now want the law to take its course, there is no reason to insinuate that the minister is being victimised politically.
"It is our very strong view that the future of the country requires politicians and business to understand their complimentary roles and give space for each to perform their function without interference and as prescribed by the law with the public institutions.
"We will never tire to challenge public institutions that violate laid down procedures."