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.

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.