The Financial Gazette

Shame Makoshori, Staff Reporter

FORMER ZESA Holdings executive chairman, Sydney Gata, has locked horns in courts with the embattled power utility over the ownership of an official residence he occupied during his tenure at the parastatal.

Gata is also fighting to retain a top-of-the-range Mercedes Benz allocated to him during his days at ZESA.
ZESA is demanding that Gata immediately vacates the property to pave way for his successor, Engineer Ben Rafemoyo and that he also surrenders the vehicle.
While on the surface it had looked like the former ZESA boss left the power utility amicably, sources told The Financial Gazette that intricate legal proceedings had erupted behind the scenes over the plush Borrowdale property and the luxurious vehicle.
This week, ZESA refused to shed light on the nature of their dispute with Gata saying the matter was subjudice.
"The matter of Dr Sidney Gata, the former executive chairman of ZESA Holdings is in the domain of the legal framework and owing to its subjudicial nature, we are not at liberty to comment," ZESA spokesman, Fullard Gwasira said in a tease statement.
Senior ZESA officials, however, said the company's properties have been the subject of a long drawn dispute for some time after several top executives who occupied them tried to change ownership into their names but were blocked by alert officials at the parastatal.
Sources said Gata's tug of war with ZESA had sucked in several high profile ZANU-PF politicians, former board members and Rafemoyo, the current chief executive officer.
Scheduled hearings between Gata's legal representatives, Kentor and Immerman, ZESA's defence team, and the arbitrators have been postponed twice because of the unavailability of key witnesses.
Gata left ZESA in 2006 after his post was abolished through the unbundling of the power utility.

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