”Don’t be surprised why public is frowning upon what Chivayo represents’— Mahere takes aim at tycoon’s legacy

FORMER Mt Pleasant legislator Fadzai Mahere has made scathing remarks about late businessman Wicknell Chivayo following his death in a helicopter crash last week.

Chivayo died alongside his wife, an aide and two pilots.

In a post on her social media platform, Mahere disputed the narrative that Chivayo was a legitimate businessman.

“People are spreading a false narrative that Wicknell was a bona fide businessman. He was not. He was a corrupt tenderpreneur and he believed that his conduct was normal,” Mahere wrote.

She referenced Chivayo’s appearance before a Parliamentary Committee, where she claimed he admitted that his company, Intratek, operated as a shelf company that fronted international companies to secure tenders for profit.

Mahere further claimed that Intratek did not produce or sell goods, had no visible employees, did not exhibit at trade shows and had no discernible commercial footprint.

She linked this to the Gwanda solar project, arguing that this was the reason the project that government paid millions for was not delivered.

“They simply get tenders from Govt then pawn off those tenders to foreign companies that do the work. Wicknell then puts a multi-million dollar mark up, gets paid huge amounts from the public purse and that’s how he got ‘rich’,” she said.

Mahere also argued that public funds used in such deals should have been invested in basic services such as hospitals, schools and public infrastructure, but were instead spent on luxury items including private jets, Rolls Royces and what she described as gifts to influential artists, church leaders and other public figures.

“So please don’t be surprised that the public are so opposed to what he represents. We need new leaders,” Mahere wrote.

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