(NEWZIMBABWE) Government grabs Meikles group
Government grabs Meikles groupby
15/09/2009 00:00:00
THE Zimbabwe government has seized assets of the Stock Exchange-listed Meikles group under a controversial anti-corruption law.
The seizure was authorised by the country’s two Home Affairs Ministers, Kembo Mohadi and Giles Mutsekwa, according to an extra-ordinary government gazette published last Friday.
Kingdom Meikles, Tanganda Tea Company, Thomas Meikles Centre and Murlis Investments were all listed as “specified” companies in the gazette which allows the government to place them under administration.
Kingdom Meikles managing director Andrew Lane-Mitchell is cited as a specified person under provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The move, although not unexpected, follows Meikles Africa Limited’s messy divorce from a merger with Kingdom Financial Holdings Limited in June. Before the de-merger, an investigation by BCA Consultancy concluded that the Meikles family had established externalisation deals “indirectly or directly”.
Meikles is accused of stashing huge sums of foreign currency in foreign bank accounts in breach of Zimbabwe’s exchange control regulations.
But the company has vowed to fight. The company’s lawyer Sternford Moyo of Scanlen and Holderness said the specification was illegal. Meikles will argue that under the terms of Statutory Instrument 128 of 2006, the administration of the Prevention of Corruption Act was assigned to the Minister of State for State Enterprises, Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies.
Moyo said: "Although that ministry is now defunct, the statutory instrument has not yet been repealed, therefore, the joint Ministers of Home Affairs are not the minister referred to in the statute.”
Before Meikles’ specification, the most controversial use of the law was the government’s 2004 take-over of assets owned by businessman Mutumwa Mawere, including the country’s largest asbestos mines – the Shabanie Mashaba Mines.
Mawere has approached the Supreme Court for a final showdown with the government.
Labels: COLOUR REVOLUTIONS, CORRUPTION, MEIKLES GROUP
posted by MrK @ 5:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home