FiNANCIAL advisor Dereck Chikura is in the eye of an “unjust enrichment and false misrepresentation storm” for seeking to claim US$200 000 – in unsubscribed share options – from a Bulawayo miner despite receiving 140 000 Australian dollars for other consultancy work done, documents show.
This comes as the ex-Grant Thornton and Camelsa (Grant Thornton) senior staffer was in 2024 barred from interefering with the business rescue proceedings or affairs of Westwood Industrial (Westwood), and other issues.
“After Chikura’s Deridon Financial Services (Deridon) firm was hired to do some due diligence work on Lonely Mine by Australian-based SIV Asset Management in July 2019, he was paid an accumulative figure or sum of AUD140 000 between that year and about 2024 plus a 500 000 share option offer, which was worth AUD60 000 and he is now claiming a whooping US$200 000,” said a source familiar with the case, adding “some of the monies were paid into his Standard Chartered Bank Isle of Man” account and “the renewed demands were coming despite his acknowledgement as well as failure to utilise the escrowed scrip within the two-year period to December 2022”.
“Further, he contracted some third parties, including Harare lawyer Blessed Ngwenya from Chinawa Law Chambers (CLC) and who went on to produce a solicitor’s report that said some mining tenements or claims such as Tiberius 14 were under Westwood Industrial (Westwood) when they belonged to Endive Investments,” they said.
While attempts to secure comment from Chikura and his associates such as Ngwenya have proved fruitless, it is understood that storm clouds could be gathering for the duo as they had “chosen to divert some work from Grant Thornton and CLC for personal gain”.
Further, the falsification of information in the December 2019 solicitors’ report and that was part of a “so-called bonafide report” had not only served to frustrate the Australian investment, but provide or open another front for the Deridon owner and Ngwenya’s pressure, if not troubles, with monetary authorities as well.
About two years ago, Chikura and some of his cohorts were disbarred from interfering with Westwood’s affairs and its corporate rescue proceedings – after an application by Reign Logistics – by Justice Happious Zhou, and under a case related to these ongoing mining disputes.
In that case, the 40 year-old corporate advisor – who is under renewed focus over Tungamirai Madzingira’s six-year unresolved murder – was kicked out along his Westwood business rescue associates for conflict of interest.
