Controversial businessman Wicknell Chivayo has been arrested over the Gwanda Solar Power Project. Chivayo received a US$5 million advance from the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) in irregular circumstances but is to make any meaningful progress almost two years later.
When the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy toured the site of the power station, they discovered only two cabins as well as an incomplete perimeter fence.
Chivayo was arrested under the orders of recently appointed acting Prosecutor General Patrick Hodzi. Former prosecutor general Ray Goba has been blamed for preventing the timely prosecution of Chivayo. A source who spoke to state-owned newspaper, The Chronicle said,
Mr Goba was handed Chivayo’s docket by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) and the police but he refused to prosecute saying he was still going through the docket for months.
National police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba confirmed Mr Chivayo’s arrest saying,
I can confirm the arrest of Wicknell Chivayo but I don’t have much detail as of now.
However, a few weeks President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s office authorised for state-owned power company, Zesa to pay Chivayo US$52 million for the same project
