Riot police keep Chanakira at Meikles | Sunday Top Stories

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Riot police keep Chanakira at Meikles

Written by SW Radio.

Friday, 25 September 2009 07:57

HARARE -- The specification of Kingdom Meikles Africa Limited took a new twist last week when riot police blocked the company’s shareholders from meeting to decide on the future of the group’s CEO Nigel Chanakira. (Pictured)

The shareholders arrived at the Meikles Hotel at 10am but found the doors of the conference room locked and guarded by riot police.
The Chairman of the company John Moxon, told SW Radio Africa that Chanakira’s wife delivered a court order, on behalf of her husband, barring the members from meeting. He said Chanakira is in hospital in South Africa.
Moxon, speaking from South Africa, said the shareholders had called for a meeting to remove Chanakira and his close associates, Callistus Chikonye and Busi Bango. He said the board had resolved they were to be removed from any of the subsidiary boards of the company. “They were to be removed because the board felt that they were obstructing the process of de-merging the (Kingdom) Bank from the rest of Meikles.”
Moxon said that when the company executives assembled they were told there was a court order organised by Chanakira and the government, to postpone the meeting for two weeks.
The Chairman said: “Mr Chanakira is in Johannesburg, he is allegedly ill, which was one of the reasons given for the court order. In other words they were suggesting that for compassionate reasons the meeting should be postponed. How ill he is I don’t know, but we do know from people who spoke to him yesterday that he managed to conduct his business quite satisfactorily from wherever he was in hospital. So he can’t be that ill.”
According to Moxon, Chanakira is in the Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg and is believed to be suffering from ‘flu’.
The government recently specified Kingdom Meikles, one of the country’s largest companies, for allegedly externalising foreign currency. The authorisation for the seizure was made by the two Ministers of Home Affairs, Giles Mutsekwa and Kembo Mohadi. Mutsekwa told SW Radio Africa last week that he authorised this because Moxon had committed a serious crime by externalising US$21million from Zimbabwe.
But Moxon denies externalising the funds and says his lawyers will be taking action against the Minister. He said: “Money was invested outside the country with the approval of the Reserve Bank and the money went through the Reserve Bank into the banking system and then out of the country.”
The embattled businessman said he has written evidence about this, although the approval was done years ago. He said: “These approvals are currently in the hands of the Zimbabwe state President and I am not sure what he is doing about them in terms of advising his people that the approvals were proper.”
“As far as the co-Minister is concerned, his comments or his accusations are defamatory and I have handed that over to my lawyer and I imagine they will be taking action against him.”

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