Zimbabwe’s cricket corruption exposed

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.

Cricket an extension of worst aspects of Mugabe’s regime - Hoey

Kate Hoey, the former sports minister and the chair of the UK’s all parliamentary committee on Zimbabwe, has called on the government to renew attempts to obtain a copy of the independent forensic audit commissioned from KPMG by the ICC.

The audit, which the ICC executive board voted not to release, is believed to have been unsuccessfully requested by the government last month. David Morgan, the ICC’s president-elect, revealed at the weekend that Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, was one of those on the ICC executive that voted not to make the report public.

Speaking in a debate on Zimbabwe in the House of Commons, Hoey, who is also a honorary vice-president of Surrey, renewed her demands that Peter Chingoka, Zimbabwe Cricket’s chairman, not be allowed to enter the country.

“[Robert] Mugabe is a ZCU patron, and Chingoka and managing director, Ozias Bvute, are both deeply implicated in the financial corruption that props up the regime,” she said. “Through cricket, they have access to hard currency, which they misuse to exercise corrupt patronage in collaboration with the bigwigs of Zimbabwe’s ruling party.

“At international matches Chingoka uses the VIP pavilion to host the ZANU-PF politicians, CIO operatives and senior army officers on whom he relies for protection.

“Zimbabwe cricket is an extension of the worst aspects of Mugabe’s regime. Those of us who care for Zimbabwe and cricket in particular, or human rights and sport in general, must do all we can to support the prime minister’s proposal to ban the Zimbabwean cricket team from touring in the UK. I hope the [foreign] minister will confirm that no UK visa will be given for Chingoka to come here to attend any ICC meetings, or for any other reason, in the next few months.”

We were wrong … the ICC can sink lower

Cricket’s governing body, the ICC, often gets criticism that is harsh. But the quit spineless way they summarily dismissed Malcolm Speed, the CEO, with two months of his contract remaining bordered on the disgraceful.

Speed’s crime was to have challenged the president, the hopelessly limited Ray Mali, and a few of the faceless individuals who are the ICC’s driving force over the issue of Zimbabwe. They give unquestioning support regardless of a mountain of evidence that the game is going to hell under the stewardship of Peter Chingoka. A slick operator, Chingoka can be a bully and has grown rich through his tenure. But he supports those he knows he needs to and in return they back him slavishly.

So a discredited group who have brought shame on the game have had their day. They should be ashamed. Cricket deserves much better leadership and morality.

The ICC and Zimbabwe: The darkest hour

Rarely do journalists really let rip in print, so it was a delight to read Peter Roebuck’s broadside against the ICC for its lame tackling of the mess that is Zimbabwe cricket on the Cricinfo website.

Its new leadership has shown itself to be spineless, amoral, unprincipled, shallow, self-centred, ill-informed and contemptible. No game that hopes to retain even a modicum of a standing in the wider community can so abjectly bow to despotism.

Of course there never was any point expecting anything except pathetic kowtowing from Ray Mali, a compromised and unworthy president of the ICC. His emptiness was exposed long ago, in the Transkei, before the fall of a system he was supposed to despise. It was documented at the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings. Nor is there anything to be gained from dwelling upon Norman Arendse, chairman of CSA, a third-rate occupant of an important position. His rise has been due not to courage or character but to an ability to sniff the wind.

And then Roebuck turned his sights on Peter Chingoka and Ozias Bvute, the bosses of Zimbabwe Cricket who have enriched themselves with the cash paid to Zimbabwe by the ICC.

These men reflect their times. Make no mistake, they are Zanu-PF loyalists in sheep’s clothing. Chingoka is a particularly nasty but of work. He has friends in very high places, enjoys the protection of the vice-president and her militarist husband. He has grown fat as others starve. As pitches go unprepared and grass grows high, he has bought property in London, built a house in Cape Town, invested heavily in companies, and generally made a fortune in a bankrupt land. Although charming when he chooses to be, his bitter, rampant racism has shocked even Zimbabwean politicians, not to mention ICC officials. Of course, that has not stopped his inexorable rise at the ICC.

Cunning to the core, Chingoka has done deals with the BCCI, and votes for it at every opportunity. India owes him “big time”. Like his mentor and master Robert Mugabe, he knows how to play his cards, talking about colonialism and intransigent whites, spreading rumours when it suits him. He is a pitiful figure who will not survive the return of democracy and the rule of law to his country, should that happy day ever dawn.

Contrastingly, Bvute is the type that appears when there is easy money to be made, the sort that also knows when to jump ship. Nowadays his family lives in New York. Not so long ago, in a brief period under a cloud, Bvute was able to transfer a large sum of money to them. He has also bought a mansion in Harare, a purchase assisted by cricketing forces. Mostly, he throws his weight around in an attempt to cower the dispirited youth team representing the nation (which team managed to finish as high as second last in a recent domestic competition in South Africa). He also seeks to control the media.

Zimbabwe’s corrupt cricket administrators

While the world looks at Zimbabwe and waits for the elections results to be announced, inside the country the men who have run cricket in the country in recent years – Ozias Bvute and Peter Chingoka – sweat it out hoping that Robert Mugabe, who has rewarded their slavish faithfulness handsomely, holds on. If he remains, so do they.

The international community allow them to retain their place at cricket’s top table because India are in receipt of their unquestioning votes when it matters and South Africa … well, we all know about South Africa’s stance on Zimbabwe.

Bvute’s overt racism and bullying is well documented and few, even within the ICC, are fooled by him. Chingoka is a smoother operator and one who has been at cricket’s top table, more often than not downing industrial quantities of Johnnie Walker, for close on two decades.

Both men are paid modest salaries by Zimbabwe Cricket, but enough to live very well by the country’s standards. And yet both have accumulated fortunes which enable them to maintain lavish lifestyles both in and outside the country. They stand to lose more than their positions if Mugabe tumbles.