Former NBS boss resigns after misconduct charges
Former National Building Society (NBS) treasurer and acting managing director John Mapiye tendered his resignation after being charged with four counts of misconduct, including manoeuvres to rig a $400 million Dzivarasekwa housing-completion tender and unilaterally upgrading his pay grade.
While the ex-NBS treasurer has attempted to blame Labour and Social Minister Professor Paul Mavima and some National Social Security Authority (NSSA) bosses for the misconduct, documents show that the former director actually left the bank after “faking” a positive Covid-19 test result for which he was also due to face disciplinary action.
Further, he had even tried to rope in institutions like the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) to obfuscate the matters and forestall an investigation into his alleged misconduct.
“While Mr Mapiye and company have actually tried to project themselves as ‘victims’, it is common cause that he actually tried to rig the respective tender by awarding it to Reegul Enterprises at a price of $400 million (about US$4,8 million at the time) when the investment threshold for that January 2021 project was US$1,4 million,” a source said.
“And you will be aware that this company — run by his National University of Science and Technology college mates — was competing against the likes of Blainesworld, which had come up tops on all technical specifications but the guy chose to change the ‘evaluation’ criteria to include site visits that were then flagged by Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ),” they said, adding there “is overwhelming evidence of the man’s nefarious plans to interfere with processes by drafting interns to
evaluate such a key national project” and so forth. While Mr Mapiye was not immediately available for comment, documents show that the Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals national virology reference laboratory centre disowned his Covid-19 results, and that the highly-rated banker had upgraded his salary and benefit perks, and facilitated a dodgy US$3 million agricultural financing scheme to his friends.
The documents show that Mr Mapiye also illegally and procedurally extended the finance
officer probation contract. It is said on March 31, 2021, Mr Mapiye carried out a
performance assessment of Mr Alfred Chaavure, the chief finance officer who was on a
three month probation contract. Despite giving a rating of excellence on Mr Chaavure’s
competence, he instead unprocedurally and illegally extended his probation period for a
further two months in violation of section 12(5) of the Labour Act (Chapter 28:01). And at
the time of the “tender scandal, NSSA marketing and communication executive Mr
Tendai Mutseyekwa denied any interference from his bosses or the minister, and insisted
that the latter was only playing his oversight role.
“The fact of the matter is that NBS did whatever it did with the tender process and
presented toPRAZ… which objected to the process… and brought this to the parent
company’s attention and culminated into the inquiries made,” he said.
“The money deployed to the Dzivaresekwa project… belongs to pensioners. NSSA a would
be highly irresponsible if it folded its hands and did nothing. The minister’s involvement
was merely to inquire what was going on after he was alerted by PRAZ.
NSSA falls under the purview of the Labour Ministry, as prescribed by…Chapter 17:04..,”
Mr Mutseyekwa said, adding that Prof Mavima was, therefore, “correct in answering or
responding to any issues arising from entities under his jurisdiction and anyone alleging
interference was ignorant of the hierarchical nature of state enterprises”.-The Herald
