ZACC ordered to investigate Ministry of Mines secretary, legal affairs boss

HARARE – The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has been asked to investigate a string of corruption allegations against the mines secretary and the ministry’s legal affairs boss.

A whistleblower document dated February 15 and sent to ZACC claims mines permanent secretary Pfungwa Kunaka and head of legal affairs Jacqueline Munyonga are being paid monthly retainers by at least two mining companies.

The document, seen by ZimLive, claims Kunaka and Munyonga are getting US$5,000 each per month from a company called Lithium Africa, which wants them to “champion” a transaction in which the investment firm is looking for a concession agreement with the state-owned Mining Promotions Company.

An Andy Mhlanga is reportedly making the payments for Lithium Africa.

Kunaka and Munyonga are also claimed to be on the pay of Bravura Investments to induce them to “safeguard all mining titles held by this company in platinum, iron ore, gold, lithium and rare metals.”

Bravura, owned by Nigerian businessman Benedict Peters, acquired the morning rights in 2017 but is yet to begin any serious mining.

The whistleblower also claims Bravura is trying to elbow out state firm Defold from the Kamativi Reclamation Dump which the two companies were to jointly run in a profit share transaction.

Kunaka and Munyonga are also accused of corruptly facilitating a lithium export permit to a company called Borga Bantu and Priority Minerals, despite it not having any lithium claims or a lithium concentrator as required by law.

Munyonga was previously investigated for corruption while working at Appleridge, a state company involved in chrome mining, claims the whistleblower.

She was never convicted.

Kunaka, meanwhile, “bashed to near death” his mistress at his Zimre house but paid out huge sums of money to block an investigation, it is claimed.

Munyonga and Kunaka both did not respond to questions left for them.

ZACC spokesperson Smiso Mlevu said: “I’m not aware of that particular report. We generally do not comment on ongoing or future investigations.”

Zimlive