Wilson Manase

Scandals and Controversies

Manase has been implicated in a number of scandals. While he was still deputising Chingoka, in 2014, he was co accused of having mismanaged usd 6 million which had been given to Zimbabwe Cricket by the International Cricket Council, by investing it in a bank on whose board they sat.^[2] The money was said to have been part of a usd 9 million loan meant to service the debt Zim cricket had with various local banks. It is said that one of the key conditions attached to the loan stipulated that Zim Cricket would use the funds to pay off its existing debt but Manase, Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute went on to invest $6 million in a non-interest bearing account at Metbank.^[2]

He was also implicated in a dubious land deal involving Ignatius Chombo in which the two were accused of having misappropriated council land which had been initially set aside for peri-urban development.^[3] It was however not verified whether the transaction between Chombo and Manase was above board considering that Manase is the personal lawyer of Chombo.

Farm Mechanisation Scheme

In July 2020, Wilson Manase was listed, in the BSR of 18 July 2020, as a beneficiary in the 2007 RBZ Farm Mechanisation Scheme, as a result of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme.

The data is analysed by recipients origin:.

• Mashonaland provinces had the most beneficiaries, both in terms of numbers and value.
  

Mashonaland East got US$47,5 million,
Mashonaland West US$44,7 million
Mashonaland Central had US$34,2 million.

• Two Matebeleland provinces had a combined total of US$13,9 million.
• Masvingo US$26,4 million,
• Manicaland US$18 million
• Midlands US$14 million.

Wilson Manase is listed under the thematic group “Politically Exposed Persons”. He is on the list for a debt of US$297,015.00. ^[4]

The US$750k lawsuit

After having been implicated in an insurance scam involving Air Zimbabwe, Manase sued Alpha Media Holdings US$750 000, publishers of NewsDay, for alleged defamation over the same issue. Apart from demanding a payment for defamatory charges, Manase was also said to have demanded a retraction too.^[5] Obert Mawadze of Manase and Manase law firm argued that

after reading the article one is left thinking that a viewer from the terraces would conclude that our client was part of a corrupt web which wanted to milk the airline. Alternatively, a bystander could conclude that people mentioned in the article had orchestrated the arrest of ‘corrupt’ individuals at Air Zimbabwe for no apparent reason, but in a calculated attempt to remove them and have them out of way for their own benefit since they were impediments to their vested interests.^[5]

The basis for the lawsuit according Manase's attorneys was that the article had been published without any real efforts to verify the facts and that there was no need to include Metbank, Manase and Manase Legal Practitioners and Zimbabwe Cricket in the article.

Manase as Zim Cricket Boss

Manase has been making several changes which are meant to revamp Zimbabwe cricket and restore sanity. One of they key moves made by Manase during his tenure as Zim Cricket boss was appointing World Cup winning coach Dave Whatmore to take over coaching of the national side. The move was taken following a string of poor performances under the guidance of Mangongo. Manase noted that there was a lot that his administration needed to do to bring back Zimbabwe cricket to its former glory days. He was quoted as having said

The new board faces a number of challenges; we need to improve a number of areas which include development, we need reorganisation of the administration of the game and we need to look at the marketing and financing of the game which has been poor mainly because of the unwritten sanctions imposed on the game.^[6]

References