By the time Zimbabwe’s crooked businessman Wicknell Chivayo died, he had become more known for his public display of his close relationship to the Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
By his own admissions, bizarre as they may sound, Chivhayo claimed he had used spiritual powers to cast a spell on Mnangagwa.
In an audio leak after his death, Chivhayo claimed he had visited spiritual healers to have Mnangagwa bow to him.
In an earlier audio, released in 2024, Chivhayo was also bragging that “he had the president by the balls.”
For a man who had no elected office, no cabinet portfolio and no constitutional mandate, his access to the highest levels of government with access to the President, billion-dollar state programmes and some of the country’s biggest public contracts became a source of scrutiny.
In addition to the unfettered access to the Zimbabwean president, Chivhayo associated with various African presidents.
In this investigation, we reveal the central role that Chivhayo played in shady deals in Zimbabwe and beyond and how other key state players, who became active participants and enablers in Mnangagwa’s criminal cartel, were instrumental in that.
To understand the role of Chivhayo, it is key to first unpack the central role of the Treasury in enabling not only Chivhayo, but the entire circle accused of being behind Zimbabwe’s looting spree of State resources.
Immediately, names like corrupt businessman behind Sakunda Holdings and multi-million-dollar government tenders, Kudakwashe Tagwirei; gold dealer, businessman and Zanu-PF politician Scott Sakupwanya; Presidential adviser and businessman behind Prevail Group Paul Tungwarara; Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Martin Rushwaya; Minister of Finance Mthuli Ncube; Permanent Secretary for Finance George Guvamatanga; former Reserve Bank governor and current CEO of the Mutapa Investment Fund John Mangudya; and current Reserve Bank governor John Mushayavanhu, Geo Pomona boss Delish Nguwaya, among others, come into play.
The Capture of the Presidency
In the first six months of 2026, the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) spent ZiG17.18 billion, 143 percent of its entire annual allocation of ZiG12.02 billion. That was almost ZiG7.7 billion more than the Ministry of Health spent during the same period.
This has been a pattern over the years, where the OPC has been funding personal projects to Mnangagwa’s blue eyed boys, masking them as ‘presidential schemes.’
The OPC funding model allows the President’s favoured businessmen to be handed State-funded projects away from the normal scrutiny attached to line ministries and conventional procurement channels.
The system put enormous personal discretion in the hands of the Mnangagwa and this is where Tagwirei, Chivayo, Tungwarara and Sakupwanya repeatedly appeared around Presidential programmes as the OPC itself became involved in contracts worth millions of dollars.
The finance bureaucracy then completed the chain. Mthuli Ncube, as Finance Minister, and George Guvamatanga, as Permanent Secretary, presided over the Treasury machinery through which these commitments could be funded and paid, while Martin Rushwaya sat inside the OPC as Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, ready to sign off documents assenting to the financing.
Last week, Tungwarara named four people as key in their criminal cartel, withTagwirei coming first, Chivhayo second, Sakupwanya third and Tungwarara himself fourth. He said they use gradient authority in the group.
In the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission affair, where Chivhayo got a plus US$100 million tender, invoices worth millions were directed to Rushwaya’s office, while Guvamatanga authorised payments to Ren-Form, the company that was used as a conduit for the corrupt tender.
This is what makes the OPC spending figure so important: it reveals a system in which political access at the Presidency, administrative control inside the OPC and the Treasury’s payment machinery could converge around projects awarded to businessmen already close to Mnangagwa.
To understand why this is so important, we need to look back.
Chivayo’s own Intratrek was at the centre of the US$172.8 million Gwanda Solar Project, from which it received a US$5.8 million advance payment. Years later, after the contract was cancelled, challenged in court and ultimately restored, the government moved to restart the 100MW project under a revised deal of about US$132 million, with another mobilisation payment now due.
Then came the ZEC contracts. Companies linked to Chivayo and his associates were at the centre of a procurement chain worth more than US$100 million, including a US$5.4 million V11 display-device purchase for equipment that was delivered after the 2023 election. The contracts were awarded to South African company Ren-Form without a public tender.
And Chivayo was not alone.
KUDA TAGWIREI- THE RING ELDER
Around the President was a group of businessmen whose fortunes and access expanded dramatically alongside their proximity to State power.
Kudakwashe Tagwirei’s Sakunda received US1.28 billion between 2016 and 2019 under Command Agriculture, and that includes US 230 million in hard currency and more than US$1 billion in Treasury Bills. An investigation by the Sentry calculated that the value of inputs supplied was about US$1 billion, leaving an apparent US$280 million difference. It further identified about US$93 million in potentially unlawful payments involving Tagwirei’s companies.
Through Sakunda Holdings and associated structures, Tagwirei became deeply embedded in Zimbabwe’s fuel, agriculture and mining sectors. Investigations by OCCRP found that his network leveraged close relationships with the government to secure major opportunities in
fuel and mining and access to scarce foreign currency. The organisation described him as a businessman who had become one of the most influential economic figures in Zimbabwe
The United States Treasury went further, accusing Tagwirei of using relationships with senior Zimbabwean officials to obtain State contracts and preferential access to foreign currency. It also said the government had failed to account for about US$3 billion disbursed under Command Agriculture.
Tagwirei, who was last week named by Tungwarara as their godfather in theMnangagwa’s criminal cartel, also took over government mines and bundled them in the Kuvimba Mining House. He did not pay for the mines, some owned by the military. He later sold them to Mutapa Sovereign Fund, an institution he controlled and prejudiced the country of about US $ 1.9 billion. He also took cover from several companies linked to the government in finance, agriculture, insurance, among others to spread his tentac;es on every arm of the economy. He is also in the process of privatising agricultural land through his Land Tenure Implementation Committee, which is also set to prejudice the country of over US$9 billion.
Scott Sakupwanya’s Better Brands was awarded a role in the Presidential Borehole Programme, with 50 million litres of diesel allocated to Betterbrands Petroleum out of a 61-million-litre facility for the programme. Better Brands and Paul Tungwarara’s Prevail Group were subsequently among companies contracted in the programme to drill and install 35,000 solar-powered boreholes and nutritional gardens.
And then there is the State’s newest financial architecture.
Under John Mangudya, the former Reserve Bank governor who became chief executive of the Mutapa Investment Fund, the government has placed the ownership of dozens of State enterprises and investments under one sovereign investment vehicle.
Mutapa says 30 State-owned enterprises and investments are now under its administration, with a gross portfolio value of about US$16 billion. Parliament has been told that the latest audited figures put the fair value at about US$14.7 billion.
The government’s own National Development Strategy says those assets are intended to be leveraged to raise capital, while Mutapa is expected to restructure companies, undertake governance reforms, attract investors and eventually list assets on stock exchanges.
That means billions of dollars in State assets are no longer sitting directly inside the conventional ministries and departments through which Zimbabweans traditionally understood government ownership. They are being consolidated under an investment vehicle with the power to restructure, commercialise, attract investors and potentially dispose of interests. Mutapa has become the latest conduit of looting by Mnangagwa’s government where the company is exempted from procurement controls.
This is where the Chivayo story stops being a story about one flamboyant businessman.
It becomes a story about how power, public money, State assets and politically connected business have increasingly converged around the Presidency.
And Chivayo himself appeared to understand the value of that access.
Before his death, he repeatedly portrayed his relationship with President Emmerson Mnangagwa as something far beyond an ordinary political friendship.
SCOTT SAKUPWANYA — GOLD, FUEL AND PRESIDENTIAL PROGRAMMES
Scott Sakupwanya occupies a different but equally important position. He is a Zanu-PF politician, businessman and major player in Zimbabwe’s gold sector. His Better Brands group has become one of the country’s largest licensed gold buyers, working extensively with small-scale and artisanal miners. The scale of the business is substantial. Better Brands reported 15.862 tonnes of gold deliveries in 2024, valued at approximately US 1.5 billion Its previous reported record was about USS1.2 billion in deliveries in 2022.
But Sakupwanya’s significance to this investigation extends beyond gold.
Better Brands Petroleum became involved in the Presidential Borehole Drilling Programme, with a ZIMRA authorisation providing for Better Brands to supply 50 million litres of diesel out of a total 61 million litres allocated to Better Brands and Rocket Energy. The arrangement was authorised for the programme being implemented through ZINWA. The procurement attracted scrutiny because of the manner in which the fuel was allocated.
Sakupwanya also appeared in the ZEC procurement story alongside Chivayo, Chimombe and Mpofu. Investigations identified him as one of the businessmen involved in the initial structure surrounding the Ren-Form contracts.
In 2025, a leaked letter also surfaced concerning a US$4.2 million payment to Better Brands Petroleum from Treasury, prompting further questions about the company’s government business.His mining interests have also attracted scrutiny. In 2025, the Centre for Research and Development accused Better Brands Mining of involvement in illegal riverbed mining in Penhalonga and estimated that approximately **18 kilograms of gold worth about US$1.925 million** had been extracted during the operation. That allegation should be treated as a separate investigative matter, but it adds another dimension to the scale and reach of Sakupwanya’s business empire.
Sakupwanya therefore sits at the intersection of gold, fuel, presidential programmes, politics and government procurement.
PAUL TUNGWARARA — THE PRESIDENTIAL PROJECT BROKER
Paul Tungwarara’s importance lies in the way his private business interests have become intertwined with programmes carrying the Presidential brand.
His Prevail Group International was contracted by ZINWA to participate in the national Presidential Borehole Programme, with an initial target of 10,000 boreholes for the company. The wider programme ultimately targeted 35,000 solar-powered boreholes and nutritional gardens across the country. Prevail’s government footprint subsequently expanded well beyond boreholes. The company became associated with projects including the refurbishment of Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, the Presidential Borehole Scheme, the US$500 million Mt Hampden Cyber City development, State House and Zimbabwe House. The company’s work has also attracted parliamentary scrutiny. In 2025, a parliamentary portfolio committee accused Prevail International of gross underperformance after finding that some boreholes and village business units in Chivi were incomplete or non-functional.
Tungwarara later became involved in a river rehabilitation programme. Prevail had been given the green light to undertake a pilot project on the Muroodzi River, while correspondence indicated that Tungwarara sought broader involvement with the Environmental Management Agency. The arrangement generated concerns about monopoly power and procurement integrity.
He has also faced personal allegations unrelated to those State contracts. The media reported that a businessman accused Tungwarara of failing to repay more than US$300,000 borrowed in connection with purported State House construction tenders.
Tungwarara’s role is therefore important because he represents a new type of political-business figure: a presidential adviser whose private company is simultaneously involved in large government programmes.
MARTIN RUSHWAYA — THE MAN INSIDE THE OPC MACHINE
Martin Rushwaya is one of the most important officials in the entire structure because he sits inside the machinery through which the Presidency coordinates government. Mnangagwa appointed Rushwaya Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet in September 2023. Before that he had served as Deputy Chief Secretary responsible for administration, finance and human resources. He had previously been Permanent Secretary in Defence and had held senior government positions going back decades. Rushwaya is also the President’s cousin. The Pandora Papers investigation documented offshore structures associated with him, including Greatgem Corp, a Seychelles company established while he was serving as Permanent Secretary for Defence.
The ZEC scandal places him directly at an important point in the money trail.
Documents show that Ren-Form invoices were sent directly to Rushwaya at the OPC. One invoice was for US 20 million, representing 50 percent of a US 40 million voter-management contract. Two further invoices were each for US$4.989 million. Rushwaya was not some distant political figure appearing in photographs with Chivayo.Invoices worth tens of millions of dollars in a controversial ZEC contract were directed to his office.
GEORGE GUVAMATANGA, THE TREASURY GATEKEEPER
George Guvamatanga is the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion, effectively the senior administrative official at the Treasury end of the government money pipeline. His role makes him crucial to any investigation that follows money from government programmes to private companies.
The ZEC scandal provides the clearest example. ZimLive reported that Guvamatanga approved a payment to Ren-Form on 7 September 2023, two weeks after the election, in circumstances that prompted questions about the release of funds.Other investigations placed Treasury directly inside the Ren-Form payment chain. NewsHawks reported that the Ministry of Finance instructed the RBZ to debit a Treasury Nostro account by US$8.964 million and credit the Zimbabwe-dollar equivalent in South African rand to Ren-Form’s Standard Bank account.
Guvamatanga himself has been known as Mr Ten Percent, as he has demanded ten percent bribes for those seeking government tenders. He has accumulated vast wealth around himself and he is currently embroiled in a scandal around his ownership of 25 houses in the elite Borrowdale Brooke suburb.
The leaked Chivayo recordings also named Guvamatanga in allegations concerning payments to officials. Those claims became part of the ZEC scandal and should be treated as allegations arising from the leaked material rather than as a conviction of the official.
But Guvamatanga’s significance does not depend on the leaked recordings.
His institutional position alone makes him one of the people through whom the money must pass.
When a government contract involves millions of dollars, Treasury is where the financial authorisation and payment machinery ultimately becomes relevant.
JOHN MANGUDYA — FROM CENTRAL BANK GOVERNOR TO CUSTODIAN OF BILLIONS
John Mangudya moved from one of Zimbabwe’s most powerful financial institutions to another.
He served as Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor from 2014 to 2024before becoming CEO of the Mutapa Investment Fund on 1 May 2024. That transition is significant because Mutapa is not an ordinary investment company. It is Zimbabwe’s sovereign wealth fund and now controls a portfolio of at least 30 State-owned enterprises and investments spanning mining, agriculture, energy, ICT, transport, banking and real estate. The assets are enormous.
Mutapa’s portfolio has been valued at approximately US 16 billion gross , and its energy and trading portfolio alone was valued at about US $6 billion and mineral resources at US$2.4 billion. That is an extraordinary concentration of State wealth, which is being used
Mutapa Investment Fund has created a new vehicle through which enormous volumes of public wealth can be moved out of the traditional government balance sheet and placed under a commercially structured investment entity, making the ownership, valuation and eventual disposal of State assets far less visible to ordinary parliamentary scrutiny. The fund now controls a portfolio valued at roughly US$16 billion, including major interests in mining, energy, telecommunications, banking and infrastructure. The most controversial example is Kuvimba Mining House, where Mutapa acquired a 35% private stake for about US$1.6 billion through a Treasury Bill , a transaction that has attracted scrutiny because the private interests previously associated with Kuvimba had been linked to businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei. Investigations have questioned the valuation and structure of the transaction, raising the prospect that public debt and State resources were used to acquire or restructure assets connected to politically connected private interests.
JOHN MUSHAYAVANHU — THE CENTRAL BANK AFTER MANGUDYA
John Mushayavanhu became Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in March 2024, succeeding Mangudya, with a five-year term running to March 2029.
His importance in this story is institutional rather than personal.
The RBZ sits at the heart of Zimbabwe’s monetary system: foreign exchange, banking operations, currency management, financial markets, capital flows and monetary policy all run through the central bank. The RBZ’s own management structure places the Governor over these functions.
Mushayavanhu inherited the central bank during one of the most difficult periods in Zimbabwe’s monetary history and became the Governor responsible for the Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) currency and the central bank’s foreign-exchange framework.
That matters to this investigation because the stories of Tagwirei, Chivayo and other politically connected businessmen repeatedly intersect with foreign currency, Treasury Bills, RBZ transactions, Nostro accounts, fuel financing and government payments.
MTHULI NCUBE THE MOBILISER OF THE FUNDS
Mthuli Ncube is the man behind the Finance Ministry and the mobilisation of the money that keeps government running. Under his stewardship, Zimbabweans have been subjected to a punishing tax regime, with the 2% Intermediated Money Transfer Tax (IMMT) becoming one of its most hated instruments. Ncube introduced the 2% levy in 2018, turning every electronic transfer into another revenue stream for Treasury. Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti has said the average Zimbabwean faces at least 15 different taxes and levies, from PAYE, VAT and IMMT to fuel levies, excise duties, tolls, licences, customs duties and NSSA contributions. The mobile-money tax alone accounted for about 5% of Zimbabwe’s total tax revenue in 2024.
DELISH NGUWAYA – THE TRASH MAN
Delish Nguwaya fits into this network as another businessman whose fortunes have been closely associated with access to the Mnangagwa establishment and lucrative State contracts. He first came to national prominence through the US$60 million Drax International COVID-19 procurement scandal, in which his company secured government contracts for medicines and medical equipment. His business interests subsequently extended into waste management through Geo Pomona, under a controversial Harare deal reported to guarantee the company US 162 million over five years. In the wider Chivayo story, Nguwaya therefore represents another beneficiary of the same political-business ecosystem: a businessman without elected office whose access to the ruling establishment opened doors to contracts worth tens and, in the case of Geo Pomona, potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.
THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT AND CABINET — WHERE THE MONEY CONVERGES
At the end of it all, the OPC becomes arguably the most important entity in the entire investigation.
With projects running under the OPC, the Presidency is functioning as a central financial and programme-coordination gateway through which billions can initially flow before being distributed across the State. Presidential adviser Paul Tungwarara reportedly placed Tagwirei first, Chivayo second, Sakupwanya third and himself fourth in the pecking order of businessmen around Mnangagwa.
Above them sits the political structure that makes the entire system possible.
Martin Rushwaya, the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, sits inside the machinery through which OPC projects are processed and executed.
George Guvamatanga, the Permanent Secretary for Finance, sits at the Treasury end of the money pipeline.
John Mangudya controls the institution into which billions of dollars of State assets have been consolidated.
John Mushayavanhu, the current RBZ Governor, heads the central bank that sits at the centre of Zimbabwe’s monetary and foreign-exchange system.
And above the entire architecture is Mnangagwa himself. That is the story.
CHIVHAYO’S REGIONAL REACH
Chivayo’s reach did not stop at State House in Harare and with direct facilitation by Mnangagwa, the crooked businessperson cultivated an extraordinary network of relationships with African heads of state, moving with an ease around presidential palaces.
He was publicly associated with Kenya’s William Ruto, Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema, Nigeria’s Bola Tinubu, Mozambique’s Daniel Chapo and Eswatini’s King Mswati III, in addition to his close relationship with Zimbabwe’s Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The relationship with Ruto was particularly striking: Ruto publicly described Chivayo as a “dear friend”, met him repeatedly at State House and elsewhere, and was photographed driving him to a helicopter after a family engagement ceremony. Days before Chivayo’s death, the two reportedly held a three-hour dinner at State House in Nairobi at which Chivayo said they discussed his proposed US$200 million investment in Kenya. AP News
Then came the allegations that turned Chivayo’s African network into a much bigger story. Former Kenyan Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua alleged after Chivayo’s death that the Zimbabwean businessman had been used by Ruto to move and hold money and claimed that Chivayo died with more than KSh1.5 trillion of Ruto’s money.
In Zambia, Chivayo’s relationship with President Hakainde Hichilema also came under scrutiny, with allegations that Hichilema lost US$2.9 billion to Chivayo, adding another extraordinary chapter to the businessman’s expanding relationships with African presidents and the vast sums of money associated with those relationships.
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