CLAIM: Zimbabwe Supreme Court has ordered ZESA to pay Wicknell Chivayo US$33 million.
SOURCE: COZWVA on their X (formerly Twitter) page
VERDICT: False
On Wednesday, February 7th, a tweet by COZWVA claimed that the Supreme Court has ordered the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) to pay controversial businessman Wicknell Chivayo US$33 million for the former’s failure to appear in court as a witness.
The post reads; “Zimbabwe Supreme court has ordered ZESA to pay Wicknell Chivayo $33 MILLION after ZESA CEO failed to appear in court as a witness.
Guess what! The CEO wil (sic)get US$7 million share…..
Zimbabwe is corrupt!!! ”
COZWVA is an acronym for Children of Zimbabwe War Veterans Association and has over 34 000 followers on X.
However, contrary to the claim, there is no pending case at the Supreme Court between Chivayo and ZESA as the parties last met in court in late 2023 where ZESA subsidiary, the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) lost a Supreme Court appeal to terminate the Intratrek Contract. Intratrek, represented by Chivayo, was contracted by ZPC in 2015 to deliver a 100 megawatt solar project in Gwanda, 124 km southeast of Bulawayo.
This was then erroneously reported by some media houses as Chivayo winning a defamation claim against the company.
ZESA also rubbished the allegations on their X page.
“ZESA holdings has taken note of a post circulating on social media, falsely claiming that the Supreme Court has ordered the payment of US$33 Million to Mr. Wicknell Chivayo. The post further alleges that the order was granted against ZESA after its “CEO” allegedly failed to appear in court.
We would like to advise our valued stakeholders that the contents of the aforesaid post are grossly misleading, fake and maliciously calculated to misinform general public. For the avoidance of doubt, ZESA has no case that is pending before the Supreme Court involving the individual referred to the post circulating on social media.
ZESA reassures its customers, stakeholders and the general public of its commitment to principles of good governance, chief among which being integrity and accountability,” reads the statement.
Conclusion
The claim that the ‘Zimbabwe Supreme court has ordered ZESA to pay Wicknell Chivayo $33 million after the ZESA CEO failed to appear in court as a witness’ has been rated as false.
The Supreme Court has not ordered ZESA to pay Wicknell Chivayo $33 million as there is no pending case between the two parties. However, late last year there was a Supreme Court ruling where a ZESA subsidiary ZPC lost its appeal to have its contract with Intratrek terminated. This particular case was on the termination of the solar project contract and had nothing to do with awarding of damages.
