One of Augur’s directors is Ken Sharpe, a businessman most recently in the news after being ordered by a court to pay $6,3 million in outstanding taxes relating to goods that one of his firms supplied to the Zimbabwe government. Sharpe was recently named in the Panama Papers as one of the 280 locals with dealings with offshore companies in leaked documents of a Panama law firm, Mossack Fonseca. He has previously denied any wrong doing.
Augur has done developments such as Mainway Meadows, a market at the “Mbudzi” area and another in Mbare, a residential project in Kuwadzana 4 in Harare.
Chombo’s personal role is laid bare in a 2010 investigation by Harare City councillors.
First, Chombo made sure everyone who sat in meetings did his bidding. In an interview recorded by councillors investigating the tender, it was revealed that chamber secretary Josephine Ncube had been involved in earlier meetings, “but was later notified by the Town Clerk Dr (Tendai) Mahachi that she was not to be involved in any meetings because Dr I Chombo had said so.”
Said the report: “The Chamber Secretary was advised not to be involved in the Airport Road project by the Minister (I. Chombo) but her subordinate, (Chief Legal Officer) was to be the Council’s legal representative in the project.”
The meetings went smoothly for Augur. This was not surprising, as one of the men sitting on the side of council, negotiating what land to give away to Augur, was in fact Augur’s own man.
“(Michael) Mahachi was doubling as City of Harare as well as Project Manager for Augur without declaring his interests”. Mahachi, a Chombo ally and appointee, had superintended over the handover of land to Augur, a company he was working for.
“At this meeting (in 2008), M. Mahachi gave feedback on Council land he had identified for payment to Augur. M. Mahachi, the custodian of Council land as a Councillor, but now Project Manager for Augur and identifying land for his new bosses.”
For his role as project manager, Michael Mahachi was paid close to $2 million.
How much the council gave to Augur in land and cash remains unclear.
Initially, council had no idea how to cost the project. So they sent a senior official to South Africa to find out. Engineer George Munyonga, a manager in charge of roads, was sent to a South African company, PowerConstruction, to determine the cost of the project. The company determined that the project would cost between $60 million and $67 million.
Augur then subcontracted Power Construction to do the preliminary construction work for the airport road. This was “in total breach of the agreement” councillors found. A payment of $3,990,129 was released to Power Construction, as “mobilisation fees”. The payout was made without council approval or the Mayor’s sign-off.
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