Mnangagwa adviser & boreholes Tsar Tungwarara accused of US$350k fraud
ED ADVISER: Paul Tungwarara
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s newly appointed investment adviser to the United Arab Emirates has been accused of conning a man of over US$300,000.
Jospher Chibisa claims Tempter Paul Tungwarara, who is currently criss-crossing the country championing a scheme to drill boreholes and build houses for war veterans, borrowed the money in 2019 claiming he had construction tenders at State House through his company, Paulos Construction, and required capital.
“He was introduced to me by my wife. Initially I loaned him smaller amounts and he paid back without a problem, and now it appears that was his way to gain my trust,” Chibisa told ZimLive on Tuesday.
“Then sometime in 2019 he requested $350,000 and I gave him. He only paid back $64,500 and it has been a struggle ever since to get him to pay.”
Chibisa says Tungwarara has acknowledged the debt and proposed payment timelines which he never met.
“I once opened a fraud case against him at the Commercial Crimes Division of the Criminal Investigations Department in Harare but nothing worked, the docket disappeared. My own conclusion is that no-one wants to be involved once they get to know that it involves Tungwarara as he has resorted to using the first family to indemnify himself,” Chibisa said.
When Tungwarara was appointed an adviser by Mnangagwa last November, Chibisa says he wrote a letter to State House seeking a meeting with the president. He wanted to tell Mnangagwa that Tungwarara was now using his name to avoid paying his liabilities.
“I got two calls from the president’s office, they wanted to clarify a couple of things but the meeting never took place. I also wrote to the first lady (Auxillia Mnangagwa) but got no response,” Chibisa said.
“The president should advise Tungwarara to pay back this small amount to avoid tarnishing his image.”
While Tungwarara’s November appointment as an investment adviser was specific to the UAE, he is now spending most of his time in Zimbabwe after his company Prevail Group International was contracted to drill thousands of solar boreholes countrywide under an opaquely financed “presidential borehole scheme.” The scheme has a target to drill 35,000 boreholes.
More recently, Tungwarara has joined hands with Zanu PF-aligned war veterans in another project called “Presidential War Veterans Borehole Scheme” which has set an ambitious target of drilling a borehole at the home of every war veteran. There are over 30,000 war veterans.
The war veterans scheme, whose financing also remains shrouded in mystery, appears to have been rushed through to contain rising discontent among veterans of the 1970s independence war after a breakaway group called for Mnangagwa’s immediate resignation.
Tungwarara had not answered questions left for him and his phone rang unanswered.
–ZimLive
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