Spiritage Zimbabwe Limited is suing AfrAsia Bank for a sizable chunk of their weight in gold, $79 million to be exact. This is according to a report published in the Herald that spells out in detail the financial mess that they are blaming for their downfall.
The applicants (Valley Technologies, Zach Wazara and Spiritage Zimbabwe) are seeking redress for loss in the value of Valley Technologies, damages from the breach of the bank’s obligations and the defamation of Wazara and his businesses on allegations of a misappropriation of $4.7 million.
The last time there was any mention of Spiritage Zimbabwe, Valley Technologies or Wazara in the media, the story played out like an obituary for a failed venture and the general consensus from observers was that we had just seen another case of mismanagement. Wazara and Spiritage are out to prove otherwise in this lawsuit.
According to the Herald report, the lawsuit brought by Spiritage accuses AfrAsia of fraudulent activities that involved converting funds received from African Export Import bank for its own use. These funds, amounting to $10 million, were part of a loan facility released by Afreximbank for Spiritage’s Valley Technologies.
It then alleged that AfrAsia diverted $3.2 million of that fund to Tetrad Investment before borrowing the same money through a “round tripping” arrangement. Valley Technologies was denied access to the full amount under the false impression that there was a Central Bank limit to the funds before being exposed to a more expensive loan through NSSA.
Valley Technologies and related companies allege that these fraudulent activities left them financially and operationally hamstrung, creating a string of challenges. This resulted in their failure to honour a $21 million loan which was settled by the seizure of its telecoms equipment by AfrAsia Bank.
Granted, there were some operational hiccups at Spiritage but if these allegations are substantiated, then this is a very nasty case of corporate misgovernance that sucks in a lot of big players. It sadly left a tech startup firm in the dust and deprived the local telecoms sector of another competitor.
Share
Home
4 comments
False start it was Brodacom.Any one remembers the full page ads they used to place daily in the Herald and Sunday Mail ….and the new cars they started buying and renting a top notch building along Jason Moyo / First Street before they even had 10 clients on their networks. Wasted IAP license.
Yes I remember that,think they wrote something like the “Game just changed”
NOT according to hearsay, who doesn’t know that Broadcom mismanagement of company assets caused it’s calamities. Zach Wazara (Tyrant CEO) put the company into disrepute, causing alot of people to be unemployment (or joblessness) without terminal benefits
Originally tried Brodacom internet at our office….worked in the morning. The connection dropped around lunch. Wasn’t working the next morning. We had to switch to Umax. So how could they have succeeded with such a shoddy service.