Brighton Mugari
ABOUT two years ago, Finance secretary George Guvamatanga was exactly in the same spot and subject of intense public scrutiny over an array of alleged offshore properties, and other assets.
While the source – and circumstances – of his misery are slightly different in that yesteryear’s attacks were motivated by his gripe with certain merchants and unscrupulous investors’ conduct, and his policy directives to go after elites now, the corrosive pushback or response pattern was almost predictable once his Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) officers announced a raid on Borrowdale Brooke (BB).
Then, Guvamatanga was savagely attacked for allegedly owning 12-plus upmarket houses in South Africa and in the aftermath of socio-political theories spun by the late Blessed Geza about a so-called clique of powerful non-state actors behind President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s throne, and now he is under heavy fire again.
“The BB homeowners association wishes to advise residents that Zimra has requested information relating to properties within the estate. The information (sought relates to) property owner, tenant’s name (if any), lease commencement date..,” read a leaked memo and notice that has been widely circulating on social media, adding the “request was being made in terms of section 39 of the Income Tax Act”.
“In terms of the said provision, the association is under a legal obligation to comply with the request. We, therefore, advise residents that (we are) working with Zimra and will be releasing the information shortly,” it said.
While his miffed detractors have attributed this ground-breaking development and policy announcement to Guvamatanga, the rumour mill has been in overdrive about the ex-Barclays Bank chief executive’s purported 25 houses in the upscale enclosure, and with the sole purpose of maligning and to reinforce the businessman-cum-bureaucrat’s “malfeasant tag”.
Strategically, these “calculated misrepresentations, and whisper campaigns” – whose deceptive motive, and spuriousness even reflected in the artificial intelligence-based digital newspapers – were also targeted at “literally setting the cat the among pigeons” and in the hope of pitting an institution he superintends, and the beleagured Treasury boss.
But like all things based on outlandish exaggerations, smear campaigns and outright malice, the claim that Guvamatanga owns nearly 25 BB houses was as outrageous, faulty and unrealistic as it could be. At any rate and if these wise guys really wanted to “educate Zimbabweans, and the world at large about the Victor Farm owner’s alleged misdeeds”, then they should have also furnished us with TITLE DEED numbers to the so-called properties, as part of copper-bottomed evidence to this soap opera (and assuming that they have got access to real, and unimpeachable data anyway).
While the idea of this opinion is not to vouch for Guvamatangas’s piety, holiness and probity, it is common cause that the 55 year-old businessman owns some properties in the northern Harare estate and which are only a fifth of what is being bandied around.
As Guvamatanga himself told us – even at the height of the vicious 2024 attacks, including allegations that he was in the habit of shaking down government contractors – he enjoyed an illustrious banking career, which enabled him to acquire houses in Africa, Europe and other jurisdictions from as far back as 2003, build a real estate company for the past 20 years and a highly productive farming enterprise, which has afforded him a comfortable life.
And if he declared about 40 of those properties upon joining government in 2018, according to a guest writer in this leading daily – Forward Madyira – then isn’t this commendable, and exemplary behaviour and something one wishes could have been backed by publicly available records or documents.
Crucially, the “public disclosures and asset declarations” should surely be further evidence that some of the properties were actually acquired decades before he joined the public service, and somewhat help settle matters or constant speculation about his investments!
And if Guvamatanga had “so many skeletons in his closet” then, would he have gone all the way to declare those assets to his superiors, who have investigative and prosecutorial powers?
But alas, this is Zimbabwe and a typically fractious, polically charged and polarised society that would rather “lap up” whatever dross, and fiction that is spewed or trotted out by faceless cowards – instead of facts!
This, therefore, gives one a feeling that some of the criticism directed against people like Guvamatanga – top civil servants in these thankless jobs – is rather too virulent and unfair sometimes.
And following robust arguments by his lawyers then that the properties were also acquired using “free funds from his Barclays plc days”, which is not a crime under Zimbabwean laws and coupled with the universal right to create wealth through value-preserving assets or investments such as real estate, it really does certify the speculative debates and manufactured narratives as brutal, underhanded and terrible hatchet jobs!
But like many, Guvamatanga might have resigned to the fact that it comes with the territory, although people MUST just spare him a thought and cut him some slack, as he has continued to do his best, play his part in resetting the economy, and NEVER claimed INFALLIBILITY!
In as much as yesteryear’s bee stings and pushback were partly triggered by the burly man’s move to “minimize transit fuel-fraud, blacklisting of errant suppliers and other measures”, the latest attacks are rooted in (Zimra and) his desire to raise tax collections for national development, and after declaring in February that Zimbabwe was “not overtaxed, as regimes were in line with regional trends, the country’s tax-to-gross domestic product ratio – at 17 percent – MUST be raised to circa 22 percent, ambition to grow revenue beyond US$10 billion annually and make the country a proper middle-income economy!
But despite co-authoring some of these national success stories such as the World Bank’s declassification of Harare from a list of strife-torn economies, the country ranking highly on budget transparency lists, France and Britain agreeing to co-chair its debt consultative group and the International Monetary Fund approving the first part of Zimbabwe’s staff monitored programme, Guvamatanga and others still find themselves as victims of cynical thinking, VILLIFICATION and conjecture!
What the Finance secretary — a colourful and self-assured man even in his ideologies — might also have to ACCEPT is that: for as long as he continues to push for those aggressive policies and changes, he MUST expect RETALIATION even in the worst ways and just as this latest incident also says something about the quality of our national discourse!
Mugari is a Bindura-based social commentator, who writes in his personal capacity.