Questions are being raised in Zimbabwe after reports that the government is allegedly supporting a bid by a controversial businessman to supply medical drugs and cancer treatment equipment worth more than $400m via his South African company, TTM Global Medical Exports, reports allAfrica.
ZANU PF member and businessman Wicknell Chivayo is listed as a director on the website of the company – registered in November 2024 with its address being a hotel in Sandton, Gauteng, fuelling questions about its legitimacy.
Critics allege the deal, if awarded, would represent another instance of corruption linked to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The uproar follows Mnangagwa’s recent tour of public hospitals, including Sally Mugabe and Parirenyatwa. A purported contract between the government and TTM Global MedicalExports was leaked online shortly after these visits, sparking the public outrage. According to the leaked document, the government intends to pay $110m annually for the next four years.
Last month former opposition leader Nelson Chamisa criticised the government for awarding the tender to Chivayo for the deal, through which TTM Global Medical Exports stands to receive US$437m.
Chamisa said corruption had become deeply entrenched in the government.
“Thieves in governments elsewhere steal from their countries, but thieves in our yard actually steal the whole country,” he said at the time.
However, Chivayo has dismissed the contract as a “fake”, and an “unsigned draft proposal” and accused opposition figures of focusing on irrelevant issues.
"So, the fuss is about an unsigned draft document, which for all intents and purposes is a proposal… Doesn't the country have a Cabinet to make decisions on our behalf? And linking this document to unannounced hospital visits is to have an overactive imagination," Mangwana wrote on X recently.
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