{"id":4786,"date":"2018-03-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/amabhungane\/stories\/lord-hains-zimbabwe-hypocrisy\/"},"modified":"2024-09-21T20:27:04","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T20:27:04","slug":"lord-hains-zimbabwe-hypocrisy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/lord-hains-zimbabwe-hypocrisy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lord Hain\u2019s Zimbabwe hypocrisy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Hain, a British peer made headlines in South Africa when he campaigned against state capture. But Lord Hain does not appear to be applying the same high standards to his own commercial dealings in Zimbabwe, as an examination of his business partners reveals.<\/p>\n

The peer himself admits that he is now working directly with senior officials \u201ccomplicit\u201d in former President Robert Mugabe\u2019s dictatorial regime.<\/p>\n

These business partners include Zimbabwe\u2019s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as well as former army chief-turned-Deputy President Constantino Chiwenga, who led the coup that toppled Robert Mugabe last year.<\/p>\n

Both men are the subject of targeted sanctions by the United States, imposed in the early 2000s, which claims that they were involved in efforts \u201cto undermine Zimbabwe\u2019s democratic processes or institutions\u201d and \u201cacts of violence and other human rights abuses against political opponents\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hain\u2019s Zimbabwean connections run through a controversial and flamboyant South African businessperson, Zunaid Moti. The 44-year-old owns several luxury properties in South Africa and is said to be so worried about personal security that his children go to their Johannesburg school with bodyguards.<\/p>\n

Moti and now Hain are also indirectly in business with the Zimbabwean Defence Force, which has a long and well-documented history of human rights abuses and corruption, and Sakunda Holdings, a fuel distribution company embroiled in corruption scandals and with close links to the ruling party.<\/p>\n

Zimbabwe\u2019s Parliament is investigating Sakunda Holdings in relation to alleged impropriety in the financing of the government\u2019s Command Agriculture scheme.<\/p>\n

Hain did not respond to the specific questions posed to him by the Mail & Guardian<\/em> and amaBhungane, but said his new business partners have turned over a new leaf.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of those who were senior figures in Mugabe\u2019s dictatorial regime, though clearly directly complicit, are part of the current transition and are promising a better economic and human rights future under better governance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Moti connection<\/h5>\n

Last month, Hain announced an \u201calliance\u201d with Moti, who is chairperson of the Moti Group. Hain confirmed that this was a \u201ccommercial relationship\u201d but refused to disclose how much he was being paid.<\/p>\n

Moti understands that he has a poor reputation and that he brought Hain on board in part to \u201cchange the media perception of us\u201d.<\/p>\n

Moti is no stranger to scandal.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant<\/a> for him and several associates. They were wanted for fraud in Lebanon, after a mining deal with a Russian businessperson went sour.<\/p>\n

Although these arrest warrants were confirmed in a South African court in August last year, Moti says they have been withdrawn. Neither Interpol nor the South African Police Service responded to requests to confirm this.<\/p>\n

In 2008, his company, FinFuture, was denied a licence to provide financial services because it failed to meet the \u201cfit and proper\u201d requirements. He ran up debts of R1.5- billion with Investec in 2010, eventually reaching a settlement deal.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Moti and his associates were charged in relation to a violent attack on businessperson Naeem Cassim. The charges were later dropped.<\/p>\n

Hain said he had been reassured by his close friend, forensic investigator Paul O\u2019Sullivan, who gave Moti and the Moti Group a clean bill of health.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan, who once described Moti as a “gangster\u201d and a \u201cthug\u201d<\/a>, conveyed the same message to the Mail & Guardian<\/em>.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan said he had done extensive due diligence on the Moti Group\u2019s operations and was satisfied that they are above board.<\/p>\n

Moti\u2019s Zimbabwean \u2019guide\u2019<\/h5>\n

Hain agreed to lend his expertise to Moti\u2019s Zimbabwean businesses, in particular African Chrome Fields (ACF), of which Hain is now an ex-officio board member. Sakunda Holdings is a 30% shareholder in ACF, and the company is operating a joint venture with the Zimbabwean Defence Force.<\/p>\n

ACF has a mine in Mnangagwa\u2019s former constituency, Chirumanzu- Zibagwe, where he was the elected representative, until 2014, when he was appointed vice-president. His wife, Auxilia Mnangagwa, is now the MP for the area.<\/p>\n

Moti boasts of his close relationship with Mnangagwa, although he insists that it did not give his businesses any undue advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Mnangagwa] guided us through government in terms of various policies they had and how to deal with them, how to deal with the investment in Zimbabwe,\u201d said Moti, in a rare interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started to understand Zimbabwe as a Mnangagwa investment, because he was there guiding us in the investment and policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Moti Group also enjoys a close relationship with Chiwenga \u2014 so close that the Moti Group even paid R52,890 for the then-army boss to stay at the exclusive Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton City for four nights in May 2015.<\/p>\n

Chiwenga and his entourage occupied two rooms at a cost of R6,611.25 a room a night.<\/p>\n

This information was revealed in the trove of #GuptaLeaks emails, which include an invoice statement from a South African travel agency. The invoice, addressed to Akzam Professional Management Services, a subsidiary of the Moti Group, includes the charge for \u201cChiwenga\u201d.<\/p>\n

A Moti Group spokesperson, Natalie Graaff, confirmed the details of Chiwenga\u2019s stay but insisted that it was part of a normal business arrangement and that the charge was subsequently settled by the Zimbabwean government.<\/p>\n

Graaff also said the inclusion of the invoice in the #GuptaLeaks trove was in error, and that there is no connection between the Moti Group and the Guptas.<\/p>\n

The Moti Group insists that this booking was above board but their response suggests a regular pattern of paying for the expenses of Zimbabwean government officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of the ACF agreement with the Zimbabwean government, monies due to the Zimbabwean government are set off against disbursements of the Zimbabwean government and\/or its officials in respect of their travels from time to time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese disbursements are all properly recorded and charged out accordingly and fully accounted for between the parties. It is the government of Zimbabwe, not ourselves, that choose and decide on such offsets,\u201d Graaff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe merely facilitated the arrangements and are most surprised that you would seek to draw the wrong inferences from such arrangement,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Chiwenga\u2019s business trip coincided with his graduation from the University of KwaZulu-Natal a few days later on May 9. He was awarded a PhD in philosophy and ethics.
\nSoldiers in suits<\/p>\n

Before the general\u2019s tour of the Moti Group\u2019s South African operations, the company\u2019s Zimbabwean mining operations, situated along the Great Dyke in the Midlands province, were officially commissioned by Mugabe.<\/p>\n

Mnangagwa and Chiwenga were among a raft of senior Zimbabwean government officials also present at the commissioning ceremony in March 2015.<\/p>\n

ACF was awarded \u201cnational project status\u201d by the government at about the same time. This helped set the company up to receive a duty-free fuel importation certificate the following year.<\/p>\n

In April 2015 \u2014 a month before Chiwenga\u2019s South Africa trip \u2014 ACF became involved in a joint venture for a chrome-smelting project with the Zimbabwean Ministry of Defence.<\/p>\n

According to Graaff, ACF was contracted to assess, explore and mine alluvial chrome resources for an agreed fee: \u201cThe contract with ACF relates to contract mining on claims belonging to the Zimbabwean government through the specific ministry.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in a later response to the joint-venture question a Moti Group spokesperson said that ACF \u201cis not in a joint venture with the Zimbabwe Defence Force. African Chrome Fields are a \u2018contract miner\u2019 to another company which owns mining rights, of which the Zimbabwe Defence Force is a shareholder\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Standards slipping?<\/h5>\n

Hain insists that his motivation for working with the Moti Group and its Zimbabwean business partners are pure.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy two-weeks new role with the Moti Group, a key business there, is partly to assist the process whereby Zimbabwe turns away from its Mugabe past and is liberated from poverty, state-sponsored corruption and oppression.<\/p>\n

“I have been assured that the Moti Group is pursuing the same objectives and will stay involved as its special adviser whilst that remains the case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hain\u2019s connections in Zimbabwe have raised eyebrows among civil society groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven Lord Hain\u2019s strident promotion of accountability and transparency in relation to the behaviour of British businesses with the controversial Gupta family in South Africa, one would hope to see a similar standard applied to his business associates\u2019 engagement with Zimbabwe\u2019s military and political leadership,\u201d said Piers Pigou, Southern Africa director for the International Crisis Group. \u2014 Additional reporting by Govan Whittles
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

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