Marshall Bwanya
Harare—Finance ministry permanent secretary, George Guvamatanga, is facing renewed corruption allegations after ruling Zanu PF’s Bikita West lawmaker, Energy Mutodi, sensationally accused him of demanding kickbacks of up to 10 percent for payments from treasury.
Mutodi also chairs the parliamentary portfolio committee on budget and finance.
The outspoken legislator, a former rhumba musician and teacher, made the claims during a heated parliamentary debate on the 2025 national budget this week.
He alleged that ministries, departments and contractors were being forced to pay Guvamatanga in order to access already allocated funds.
“Contractors, ministries and departments refusing to pay Guvamatanga a kickback of at least 5 percent after receiving treasury payments have been denied payments for several months even if the funds are budgeted for,” Mutodi said.
This is not the first time the treasury boss has faced such accusations.
In 2020, civil society groups questioned his unexplained wealth, while in 2022, a leaked audio suggested that top government suppliers were expected to surrender part of their contracts in kickbacks to treasury officials.
Mutodi further alleged that Guvamatanga’s alleged personal enrichment has made him “the richest civil servant”, pointing to his reported ownership of more than 5,000 dairy cattle, several mansions and luxury equipment despite earning a government salary below US$1,000.
“Parliament itself has struggled to operate over the past six months after being denied its budgeted funds by George Guvamatanga,” he added.
Mutodi also claimed that a road contractor, Bitumen World, was asked to pay US$200,000 for every US$2 million released to it.
He added that Guvamatanga had threatened to unleash a “terror team” on the legislator after learning that the budget committee was considering a lifestyle audit for him and reporting his alleged excesses to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC).
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson, Caston Matewu, said his committee had not yet received a formal complaint against Guvamatanga, in office since 2018, but stressed that parliament would act if the allegations were strong enough.
“The Public Accounts Committee is concerned when public funds are misused, and if there is such a complaint that public funds were taken and misused inappropriately …we would consider probing the permanent secretary if need be,” Matewu said.
He noted that the Public Finance Management Act provided for disciplinary action.
“When public funds have been misused…we can carry out a special investigation as the Public Accounts Committee and hand that over to the appropriate minister.
“In terms of Section 87 of the Public Finance Management Act, disciplinary proceedings have to take place. We (would) forward our findings to ZACC and the auditor general,” he added.
Efforts by NewsHub to obtain a comment from Guvamatanga were unsuccessful.
Questions sent to him regarding the allegations were not answered by the time of publication.
Guvamatanga has been repeatedly alleged to be a close ally of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose administration, since 2028, is perceived to be influenced by a cartel of controversial businesspeople siphoning away millions of public funds mainly through shady tenders.
Mnangagwa’s senior vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, recently used a high level Zanu PF meeting to allege that some members of this cartel, among them oil magnate Kudakwashe Tagwirei, were using money stolen from the party to fund a succession campaign in which the president is seeking to extend his tenure to 2030.
Having been voted into office in 2018, Mnangagwa’s second and final five-year term is supposed to end in 2028, but there is a spirited campaign to stretch it to 2030.
Mnangagwa has publicly vowed that his successor must not come from the old guard that fought to liberate Zimbabwe from colonial rule, a position perceived as a ploy to ensure Chiwenga does not take over.
This is despite the fact that Mnangagwa worked closely with Chiwenga, then head of the military, to topple Mugabe in November 2017.
A former ruling party chairman and legislator, Temba Mliswa, in a leaked audio with an anti-Mnangagwa businessman, Agrippa “Bopela” Siyakurima, alleges that the current president wants Tagwirei to take over from him.
Mutodi is no stranger to controversy, having been expelled from cabinet in 2020 where he was deputy minister and is often accused of using parliamentary privilege to settle political scores.