‘I didn’t run away, but visited new baby in Dubai’— claims Tungwarara amid speculation he fled imminent arrest over alleged corruption
PAUL Tungwarara, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s investment advisor to the United Arab Emirates, and one of the individuals named in the recent corruption dossier tabled at the last Zanu PF Politburo meeting, has insisted he never fled the country.
Instead, he says he simply travelled to Dubai to celebrate his newborn child.
Addressing Zanu PF supporters at a Disbursement of Empowerment Fund meeting in Zvimba on Friday, Tungwarara was positively fired up, vowing to defend Mnangagwa tooth and nail. He declared that no one should even think about toppling Mnangagwa from power.
“We are ready to defend our President and our party, and nothing is going to stop us. Nothing will stop the vision of the President,” he asserted.
“Leaders are appointed by God. Stop dreaming of toppling the President. If a leader has been appointed by God, it is God himself who will remove him.”
Tungwarara’s remarks further illustrate the rising tension in the Zanu PF succession battle, with every opportunity being used to demonstrate loyalty to Mnangagwa. He is considered to be part of a group that Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has labelled Zvigananda, a Shona term for those who amass wealth through illicit means.
Having been absent from the public eye for a while, social media had been awash with speculation that he had fled the country, fearing for his life. However, the business tycoon has refuted these rumours.
“I went to Dubai to see my newborn baby and spent some time there. Then some people started saying I fled the country. Fleeing from who and what?” he asked.
Tungwarara is among those listed in the corruption dossier tabled by Chiwenga at the last Zanu PF Politburo meeting in Harare. He is mentioned alongside controversial tycoons Kudakwashe Tagwirei, Delish Nguwaya, and Wicknell Chivayo.
The quartet have been in the public eye for all the wrong reasons, chief among them being allegations of tender process manipulation. Tungwarara himself, through his company Prevail International Group, was awarded the tender to drill 10,000 boreholes under the Presidential Borehole Scheme.
Tungwarara was recently given a dressing down by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Agriculture for failing to deliver the boreholes and the Village Business Units as per the terms of the tender.
Tungwarara and his colleagues, Tagwirei and Chivayo, have also publicly pledged their support for Mnangagwa, vowing that he is going nowhere.
Tagwirei has scoffed at the corruption accusations and challenged Zimbabweans to put in their own tender applications and get some money.
