Chamisa slapped with a $3.2 million legal bill, another still to come

Movement for Democratic Change leader Nelson Chamisa has been asked to pay $3.2 million to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s lawyers for the 30 July election challenge case which he lost at the Constitutional Court.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has not yet presented its bill.

The Constitutional Court asked Chamisa to pay the costs.

MDC secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora described the bill, which is reported to have been posted two weeks ago, as outrageous.

“We were advised that they have billed us for the costs as ordered by the court,” Mwonzora told the Sunday Mail.

“In our view, the bill is extremely excessive, not bona fide and grossly exaggerated and our lawyers are going to contest it.

“We are told that they have billed us a figure of around US$3.2 million.

“There is a process called taxation where if we fail to agree on the bill, the court will have to go through the bill and determine what is fair.

“The bill we have at the moment is grossly malicious.”

Chamisa launched the Nelson Chamisa Trust Fund to raise money to pay the legal costs through local mobile cash platform Ecocash and through five South African banks more than a month ago.

MDC representative in the United Kingdom Yvonne Gwashavanhu also started raising money through crowd-sourcing platform GoFundMe on 26 August.

It is not clear how much Chamisa has raised through Ecocash and the South African banks but he has raised only £22 540 through GoFundMe. The target is £100 000.

Chamisa raised £5 966 in the first 20 hours but has only raised £168 in the past 19 days.

The last contribution was six days ago.

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