Mandiwanzira lashes out at ‘malicious’ Kangai

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FORMER Information and Communication Technology minister Supa Mandiwanzira yesterday accused ex-NetOne chief executive officer Reward Kangai of maliciously attempting to drag him into the parastatal’s US$4 million corruption scandal, for which he had already been cleared by the courts.

This was after Kangai wrote to Prosecutor-General Kumbirai Hodzi on September 28, 2021 imploring him to expedite prosecution of NetOne’s million-dollar corruption scandal, which implicated Mandiwanzira, who was, however, acquitted of the charges by the High Court.

Kangai was the State witness in the matter in which Mandiwanzira was being accused of interfering in the operations of NetOne by allegedly corruptly handpicking a Chinese company, Megawatt Energy, to investigate another Chinese firm, Huawei. Megawatt was set to be paid US$4 million.

The charges were, however, quashed by the then High Court judge Justice Nicholas Mathonsi following an application for review by Mandiwanzira.

In his letter to Hodzi, Kangai claimed that he was still being victimised by unnamed individuals involved in the scandal, adding that there was interference with the course of justice in handling the matter which he reported to authorities in 2016.

He said he was fired from his post as NetOne chief executive and was, instead, arrested for corruption after having exposed the US$4 million scandal.

But through his lawyer Fungai Chimwamurombe, Mandiwanzira distanced himself from Kangai’s dismissal, saying the latter was implicated in a forensic audit report which exposed mismanagement at the parastatal, resulting in the termination of his contract.

“Mr Kangai was terminated as chief executive officer of NetOne by the nonrenewal of his contract after 15 years at the helm of the State-owned enterprise. His termination followed a damning forensic audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers which unearthed extensive corruption and mismanagement at NetOne and directly implicated Mr Kangai,” Chimwamurombe said.

He said although Kangai had lobbied for the arrest of prosecutor Admore Nyazamba, charges against him were later withdrawn by Hodzi after he discovered that they were malicious and baseless.

–-NewsDay