Shame Makoshori, Chief Business Reporter
IN street lingo, teenagers call it flambimbo, but in formal English language it is called flamboyance
Love him or hate him, Phillip Chiyangwa, one of the early movers of black economic empowerment, has got it in abundance.
The property magnate — who claims to be a self made entrepreneur — has absolutely no regrets for being highly elaborate with his wealth.
While being a motor-mouth and showy at the same time has won him a lot of friends, it has, in the same measure, created a lot of enemies too.
But if there is one other thing the Native Investments Africa Group executive chairman, is good at, apart from knowing the art of making money, it is knowing how and when to defend his turf.
Don’t you dare annoy Chiyangwa, or do anything that threatens his wealth because he will simply unleash his firepower at you like the mega litres of oil currently spilling uncontrollably in the Gulf of Mexico.
Finance Minister, Tendai Biti’s Mid-Term Fiscal Policy review statement is a case in point.
Biti touched a raw nerve last week after scrapping a duty free facility that allowed players in the tourism sector to bring vehicles into the country duty free, effective September 1.
The Finance Minister said the programme had been abused by operators who were importing vehicles for personal use and for their “small houses” — street lingo for concubines.
Through his Native Investment Africa Group, Chiyangwa owns a number of listed and non-listed companies.
These include the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed, ZECO Holdings, an engineering business; Pinnacle Property Holdings and Tsivo Holdings Limited through which he owns Glory Car Hire.
Glory Car Hire’s asset register has 54 top of the range Mercedes Benz vehicles and 20 Bentleys, which were imported under the duty free facility. This is in addition to a 5, 4 million rand Rolls-Royce, exclusively imported by Glory Car Hire to cater for high net-worth tourists.
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) lobbied for the facility last year.
In an interview with The Financial Gazette last week, Chiyangwa threatened to exit from the travel business citing policy inconsistancies.
“If I feel the business is becoming so noisy and stupid, I can opt out and people will lose jobs,” Chiyangwa said in reaction to the scrapping of the duty-free window.
“Nobody should play around with my money. You (Biti) haven’t succeeded in anything and (yet) you (want to) tell me how to do things?”
Biti, considered to be one of the country’s top legal minds, made his name as a lawyer. He is also the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T)’s secretary general.
He was appointed Finance Minister in February last year following the consummation of the inclusive government between ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations.
While Chiyangwa’s business empire is predominantly property and engineering, the former ZANU-PF chairman for Mashonaland West has diversified his interests into the hospitality sector in order to take advantage of an anticipated boom in tourism.
The tourism industry is still to recover from a decade-long economic crisis that hit the country between 1998 and 2008.
At the height of the crisis, the industry experienced a huge drop in tourist arrivals, especially from traditional markets which slapped the country with travel warnings.
The travel warnings were withdrawn last year as the international community warmed up to the new political dispensation.
Attempts to shift focus to the Far East and other Asian markets had failed to reverse the industry’s fortunes which only started looking up in February last year when the inclusive government was formed.
Industry players also claim to have lost US$15 million through the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) raids which followed a crack investigation into the affairs of the industry by the National Economic Conduct Inspectorate-(NECI).
The NECI investigation exposed serious corruption in the industry.
Chiyangwa estimates that his Glory Car Hire suffered US$500 000 in revenue losses during the ZIMRA raids.
This week, the flamboyant businessman told The Financial Gazette that the scrapping of the duty free facility was targeted at his business, adding that Biti was tightening the scre-ws on ZANU-PF controlled ministries in the inclusive government. ZTA operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Tourism, headed by Walter Mzembi (ZANU-PF).
“It is not the only Rolls-Royce brought into this country under the same (duty free) programme and yet it is the only Rolls-Royce that people are losing sleep over,” he said. “Someone’s heart skips the moment he sees it and says: Oh, he (Chiyangwa) can’t own it. But I have bought it. I have the cash to buy the vehicles. Everybody is jealousy of what I do. Why don’t you do your own things man? These stupid decisions are like taking one step forward and the next backwards. If this is not naivety, then I don’t know what is. I expect a minister like Biti to be more magnanimous than narrow,” he added.
Chiyangwa said he has bought an entire bond of Mercs from ZIMOCO, the local franchise holder of Mercedes Benz vehicles, for US$11 million and employs scores of workers at his Glory Car Hire.
“I employ chauffeurs and the guys who clean my cars, there are 20 of them. History is being destroyed, we need a Co-Finance Minister (from ZANU-PF); Biti is hard to penetrate. Finance is a collective ministry, ndini ndazvitaura handina basa naye. (It’s me who has said it, I don’t care). Anything in government that is ZANU-PF-run is being resisted by Biti. He listens to Pasi (ZIMRA boss Gershem), but does not listen to Kaseke (ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga) . I told the ZIMRA guys you can’t take my vehicles, panofiwa (there will be bloodshed). It is my money; I didn’t buy them through a government loan...I had to get a ministerial letter to intervene,” Chiyangwa added.
Pasi is the Commissioner General of ZIMRA, which falls under the Finance Ministry.
Asked which minister had intervened during his standoff with ZIMRA after the tax collecting agency tried to impound two of his Mercedes Benz vehicles but failed, the businessman fired back:
“Why do you want to know him? He is a ZANU-PF minister,” he charged.
“The next day they (ZIMRA officials) phoned to say we are no longer coming,” said Chiyangwa.
On Thursday last week, the day after Biti delivered his statement, Zimbabwe Council for Tourism president, Emmanuel Fundira, Kaseke and Chiyangwa put aside their long-standing differences related to their business interests to trash the Finance Minister’s fiscal review statement.
“It is about the Rolls-Royce,” said Kaseke.
“But we approved Chiyangwa’s papers on the basis of the details he gave us, and we were convinced they were correct,” he said.
