NetOne CEO Is Suing Supa Mandiwanzira And The Office Of President

Just when it appeared the unrest at NetOne had met it’s end, the saga continues. In the space of three weeks NetOne fired 9 executives, reinstated the same executives and now it appears the CEO -Lazarus Muchenje- has just sued the ICT Minister for illegally involving himself in NetOne’s running.

Muchenje is suing 18 respondents and the 18 respondents include:

• ICT & Cyber Security Minister Supa Mandiwanzira
• NetOne
• 6 board members;
• 9 executives who were fired a few weeks ago;
• The Office of the President and Cabinet

NetOne CEO Lazarus Muchenje sues ICT Minister Supa Mandiwanzira, 6 board members,9 fired executives and the Office of the President & Cabinet for allegedly breaching corporate governance rules. He says the minister is undully meddling in the running of the state-owned enterprise.

— Brezh Malaba (@BrezhMalaba) August 6, 2018

We secured an image of the second page of the court filing and it reads:

Urgent Chamber Application

(Rule 244, High Court Rules, 1971)

TAKE NOTICE THAT, an urgent Chamber Application is hereby made for an order in terms of draft order annexed to this application on the grounds that:

1. The First to Sixth Respondents unlawfully and irregularly authorized a Special Board Meeting of the Board held on Saturday, 28^th of July
2. The First to Sixth Respondents above passed a special resolution to rescind the decision not to renew the contracts of Seventh to Fifteenth Respondents above.
3. The special resolution renewing these contracts is patently a nullity. There was no lawfully convened Board meeting and there were no lawful resolutions passed at that Board meeting.
4. There is no other suitable alternative remedy for the Applicant other than the interim relief sought in this application.

The accompanying affidavits and documents are tendered in support of the application

Dated at HARARE this 3^rd day of August, 2018

Making sense of the application

The application that has been filed makes it clear that the issues Lazarus Muchenje has with Supa Mandiwanzira and co. (i.e First to sixth respondent) include the fact that a meeting was organised without his authority. The fact that Supa and five other respondents also chose to reverse the CEO’s decision not to renew the contracts of 9 executives is also one of the grounds upon which this application is filed.

Essentially, what Muchenje is saying is that i) There was a meeting that was unlawfully convened and ii) that meeting resulted in the unlawful reinstatement of nine executives. NetOne’s CEO (in point #4 of the application) is asking that the nine executives do not resume their activities whilst the issue is in court.

We reached NetOne for comment but they refused to comment as the issue is now in courts.