Questions continue to be raised over a media productions company acquired by individuals in Zimbabwe Cricket using board funds, but whose proceeds never benefited the organisation, but the individuals involved.
Reliable sources state that a considerable figure of money exchanged hands in the acquisition deal, and police’s fraud department is already investigating the matter.
The board’s managing director Ozias Bvute, former ZC marketing executive Andrew Muzamhindo and media manager Lovemore Banda are some of the directors and major stakeholders of the company, Tatu Media Productions. The others are relatives and friends of Bvute.
Muzamhindo, infact, resigned from ZC to assume the post of the company’s managing director, but has since quit the venture under unclear circumstances.
Tatu was purportedly purchased as a ZC subsidiary to “internally carry out graphics and printing jobs for ZC in order to cut costs”. It turned out that Tatu was nothing but a private business project for the individuals despite ZC equipment such as cars, fuel, furniture and computers being used there. ZC’s bloated media department worked from the company’s offices for some time.
Tatu cashed in on of several millions of dollars by billing ZC for jobs done by the company with inflated invoices.
Some of the paid jobs include, newspaper and television adverts, coaching manuals, journals and match tickets. The payments made by ZC are believed to have been pocketed by the shareholders.
Tatu also publish a sports magazine, Sportlight, with ZC meeting the printing costs. The last edition of the magazine was printed in China. The magazine, dominated by football content, has been making losses.
