Finances again under the spotlight

Corporate purchase concerns for Zimbabwe board

Steven Price in Harare

May 25, 2008

There are calls for investigations into Zimbabwe Cricket's purchase of a company, Tatu Media Productions, amid more allegations that all is not quite as straightforward as it might seem.

There have been concerns doing the rounds over the relationship between ZC and Tatu for several weeks, and these became public at the weekend with a report in the Zimbabwean which claimed that profits from the company may have gone to board members rather than the board itself.

Tatu was purchased by ZC for a sum believed to be around US$500,000 to "internally carry out graphics and printing jobs for ZC in order to cut costs". It lists among its directors Ozias Bvute, ZC's managing director, Lovemore Banda, ZC's media manager, and other ZC officials.

"It appears that Tatu was nothing but a private business project for the individuals despite their use of ZC equipment such as cars, fuel, furniture and computers," the newspaper said. "ZC's bloated media department worked from the company's offices for some time," adding that Tatu "cashed in on millions of dollars by billing ZC for jobs with inflated invoices".

The police are understood to be looking into claims, and this will be another embarrassment to the ICC which has steadfastly refused to reveal the findings of an internal forensic audit into ZC's finances. The revelations are only likely to lead to renewed calls for the results of the audit to be made public.

Steven Price is a freelance journalist based in Harare

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