Gumbo Justifies Why His Company Won Lucrative Zinara Tender

Speaking to The Herald, Energy Minister Joram Gumbo justified how his company won a tender with the Zimbabwe National Road Administration during his tenure as Transport Minister.

Gumbo was recently reassigned to the Ministry of Energy and Power Development.Gumbo’s company JMCD won a lucrative tender to supply clothing material to Zinara during his tenure as Transport Minister. He told The Herald that his company won the tender competitively and the same company was also supplying other Government departments. Asked if there was no conflict of interest in having his company supplying material to a state enterprise under his ministry, Gumbo said:

I have a company called JMCD. It is our company and the directors are myself and my wife. It is a sewing company. It is supplying the army, Zanu-PF, the Ministry of Health (and Child Care) and many other companies. It won these tenders. It has got nothing to do with me as an individual. I cannot go and stop a company and say you can’t tender. It is not possible and the fact that I am working and when the company supplies the army and the Ministry of Health it is okay, but when they supply Zinara because they have won a tender competitively like everybody else then it becomes a crime. I do not understand it. When they won their tender I was not even involved, but the company is there and there is nothing to hide about it. It is connected with Nemchem and was supplying a lot of things in Government. We are doing a lot of cleaning and it did not start now. That has always been happening.

Documents in The Herald’s possession show that on some occasions Gumbo was paid money for other engagements by Zinara, which had nothing to do with road development. In one case Zinara paid for $4 380 for Dr Gumbo’s travel expenses to Malaysia on Zim Airways business. Asked why Zinara was paying his costs that had nothing to do with road development Dr Gumbo said it was official Government business.

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More: Herald