Kangai Responds To The Lawsuit Against Him By NetOne

Operation Restore Legacy continues…

It has been an interesting few days or shall I say month as Kangai, Mandiwanzira and NetOne have been going back and forth on some corruption scandals. Today, the NewsDay published a response from Kangai to the suit that was leveled against him by NetOne. Before I get there, a little background and context might help.

A few days ago, a letter addressed to the president of the Republic of Zimbabwe by Mr Reward Kangai was released. The letter which was titled “The Birth and Growth of a cartel in the ICT sector in Zimbabwe“ was meant to expose the corrupt dealings that are occuring in the ICT  industry of the country.

Amongst the many that were implicated in the whole corrupt and scandalous runnings within the ICT industry was the minister of ICT and Cyber Security himself, Minister Supa Mandiwanzira. These are not the only allegations stirred by Kangai that the minister is facing. Currently, Mandiwanzira is being investigated by the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission (ZACC) for a $4 million corruption scandal.

Interestingly, prior to the writing of this letter, NetOne had filed a lawsuit against Kangai at the beginning of the month of December in 2017. The suit stated that the company had suffered losses due to the accused’s alleged mismanagement of funds during his time in office and as such, he is being sued for $2 million dollars.

Now in his defense, Kangai claims that this $2 million suit is just a front by the parastatal in a bid to not pay him his early release package following his dismissal at the company. An early release package that “cannot be divulged due to a confidentiality agreement with NetOne”. He also claimed that this suit based on his reasoning of how absurd it is reveals how uninformed the new board and management of NetOne is about mobile business as a whole.

Did I mention why he got dismissed by the way? Kangai was suspected of having been carrying out “improper procedures for the payment of suppliers and giving advanced payments for services that were sometimes not delivered, weak accountability and a failure to enforce procedures on transactions”.

According to the letter written by Kangai, these allegations were being laid against him by Minister Mandiwanzira which in my opinion makes this whole case interesting; not to mention how Mrs Sibusisiwe Ndhlovu (appointed by the same minister) who brought these allegations to the board’s attention had also been forced to resign as Executive Director for Retail banking at MetBank following a forensic audit that found her unsuitable for the post.

If all this is true, the letter, the allegations etc. then it seems game “let’s expose each other” is on and we love it! if this is what it takes for corruption to be exposed and its perpetrators to be brought to justice, then so be it. Corruption has for a long time been amongst the biggest reasons why Zimbabwe struggles to develop and for as long as such exercises are being carried out then there indeed is hope.