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Panashe Machakaire Herald Reporter
The trial of former Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma, former Zesa chief executive Joshua Chifamba and managing director of Zesa Enterprises Tererai Mutasa, has been postponed because the State witness, Mr Energy Mundandisi, is too sick to attend court.

The trio appeared before Harare magistrate Mr Francis Mapfumo facing criminal abuse of office charges and the matter was postponed to May 6.

Prosecutor Mr Zivanai Macharaga alleges that the trio entered into a technology transfer partnership with a South Korean company, Techpro Company Limited, for the manufacture of switchgears without due process. Five years down the line, Techpro Company failed to execute the project after getting an initial payment of  US$850 000.

Allegations are that this happened in 2010 when Choi Young Jin, who was representing Techpro, met Mangoma at his offices in Harare.

They signed a technology transfer partnership between Zesa Enterprises and Techpro for the manufacturing of the switchgears.

Mangoma allegedly instructed Mutasa to liaise with Techpro with a view of establishing the partnership. The court heard that Mutasa wrote to the State Procurement Board seeking advice on the procedures to be followed in such partnerships.

He was advised to proceed with Section 49 of the repealed Procurement Regulations Act (Chapter 22:14).

Mutasa was further advised to seek assistance from State Enterprises Restructuring Agency (SERA) on how to proceed.

SERA advised Mutasa to prepare a memorandum for Mangoma to submit to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Commercialisation and Privatisation of Parastatals (IMCCP) recommending the identification of a technical partner for the technological transfer through a competitive bidding process.

Chifamba and Mangoma allegedly connived to bypass the approval by IMCCP and the competitive bidding process and favoured Techpro company.

Due to this, Zesa reportedly suffered a total prejudice of US$850 000 and nothing was recovered.