Zimbos are dumbfounded by the revelation that an SA firm linked to Wicknell Chivayo charged ZEC over US$1.2 million for an HP server that costs about US$4,000.
The US$40 Million Inflated Deal
Wicknell has been under fire since it emerged that he was part of the US$40 million deal to supply equipment for the 2023 elections. South African firm Ren Form won the tender and partnered with Better Brands Security, owned by Scott Sakupwanya, who was ironically a candidate in the same election. Chivayo was also part of the deal.
Later, Ren Farm nicodemusly elbowed Better Brands out and made Chivayo the principal partner. Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu of Better Brands wrote a letter to Ren Farm, complaining that they had been left in the cold and Chivayo had taken over.
Chimombe and Mpofu demanded a 10% payment of all the profits paid to Chivayo. The letter leaked, and it had damning revelations that Chivayo and the firm inflated prices by 235%. Documents and invoices from the deal are leaking into the public domain, and they are messy.
One of the invoices from Ren Form to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is trending and shocking people online.
The company supplied ZEC with an HP Proliant DL380 Gen 10 server. On the invoice, the company quoted $1,264,865.
A simple Google search will show the price ranges of the servers, exposing how Wicknell and the firm ruthlessly overcharged ZEC. A Zimbabwean company sells the same server for US$3.945, while Amazon has it for $4,695.