Steve Smith Blog

In an announcement on Thursday, BNC announced the appointment of Christopher Fourie and Jozef Behr to the board. Fourie is the head of Sotic International, while Jozef Clifford Behr is the chief commercial officer of the goods company. Fourie, an investment consultant, has served as head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Puma Energy, which is jointly owned by Trafigura and Sonangol and is the Zimbabwean partner of Tagwirei's Sakunda Holdings. BNC also appointed Obey Chimuka, MD of Fossil Contracting, a company associated with Tagwirei. Chimuka was recently appointed to Great Dyke Investments, a Zimbabwean-Russian joint venture developing a platinum mine in Darwendale. While its partner is Afromet JSC, which is 100% owned by Russian investor Vi Holdings. Chimuka sits on the board of Sakunda Supplies. Olivier Barbeau, Oliver Chidawu and Toindepi Muganyi stepped down from the BNC board. The acquisition of BNC extends Tagwirei's influence in the business and infrastructure sector, as

 Everyone involved around Kuvimba has been keen to make one big point; businessman Kuda Tagwirei is not involved in the company. "Tagwireyi is not involved at all; we did our due diligence," Ncube says. "All the entities in the 65% are state-owned." Government claims that its contribution of assets accounts for the 65% in Kuvimba. However, this would suggest a valuation of all the assets has been done to give the split. There has been no such valuation. It is easy to see why officials are so desperate to remove Kuvimba from Tagwirei. He is on the US sanctions list and any association with Kuvimba reduces the company's ability to raise capital. Tagwirei himself would prefer his companies not to be attributed to him. However, it is difficult to place Tagwirei too far away from these companies. With no full disclosure, Kuvimba appears to be an elaborate scheme designed to protect both the interests of the state and Tagwirei himself. This would be a remarkable role