eBusiness Weekly
Africa Moyo
National Social Security Authority (NSSA) board chairman Robin Vela has been fired by Government under unclear circumstances.
Without giving reasons for the decision, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Petronella Kagonye dismissed Vela through a March 27 letter.
Reads the letter: “Acting in terms of the National Social Security Authority Act Chapter 17:04 Section 8 (a), I wish to advise that you have been withdrawn as member and chairman of the NSSA board with immediate effect.
“Let me take this opportunity to thank you for the services you rendered to NSSA since your appointment in 2015. May I wish you success in your future endeavours.”
Section 8 (a)of the NSSA Act talks about how one is disqualified from appointment as a member of the board if they are not ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe.
Efforts to get a comment from Minister Kagonye were fruitless as her mobile phone was unreachable yesterday.
Vela said the allegations that he was not ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe is “not true”, adding that: “I hold a Zimbabwean passport, my kids attend school here, my wife resides in this country and I have businesses that I run from here.”
Sources however say Vela – who prides himself as a paragon corporate governance issues – is “okay” with the dismissal, although he is “shocked” about the argument that he is “not ordinarily a resident of Zimbabwe”.
“He is a strong man. He said is okay with the dismissal but I tell that he was shocked at first.
“In all honesty, how would one claim that Vela does not stay in Zimbabwe when he spends most of his time here?” said a source on condition of anonymity.
Another source claimed that the social media campaign waged by Norton MP Themba Mliswa, which sought to portray Vela as a bad leader, might also have triggered his dismissal.
There are fears now that Vela’s dismissal might plunge NSSA back into yesteryear challenges that saw it being prejudiced of millions of dollars in phony investment deals such as the NSSA Beitbridge Hotel and Celestial Park in Harare.
According to a forensic audit, it would take NSSA almost 278 years to recover its investment in the Beitbridge Hotel project.
This makes it almost difficult for NSSA to generate any meaningful return from the property unless it was disposed to interested bidders.
A 668-page forensic audit report done by Grant Thornton also raised concern on the seemingly inflated cost of acquiring another property, Celestial Park in Harare’s Borrowdale West suburb on part of the racecourse.
The audit report points to a sloppy tendering process in engaging an out-of-sorts contractor for the project, Costain Zimbabwe; inordinate delays in construction, which negatively impacted on the cost; and endless alterations to the terms of the contract between NSSA and the contractor.
The scope of the project also changed midway. The anomalies saw NSSA being creamed off about $30 million through inflated project costs.
In terms of the Beitbridge Hotel, a brainchild of Government’s 2006 push to redevelop the border town, estimates initially suggested that it would costs $3 million to construct a 140-room hotel.
However, the forecast was based on incomplete drawings and architectural designs.
When the initial tender to identify the major contractor was then floated on October 30, 2009, NSSA put the pre-tender estimate at $18,9 million.
The tender had to be re-floated in February 2010 after bidders were deemed to have failed to meet the specifications of the tender. After several other tendering processes, NSSA ended up paying $44 million for the project, under unclear circumstances.
The auditors concluded that using the $50 per night per room rate that was being used by NSSA, it would take 278 years to recover its investment.
“Assuming an average rate per room of $275 was to be charged at Beitbridge Hotel, the payback period would be about 51 years,” said the auditors.
But rates of between $200 and $300 are typically charged by five-star hotels.
On the Celestial Park investment, it emerged that the purchase price of $32 million could have been inflated given that BARD Real Estate Company had done a valuation for the property on May 27, 2014 and rated it at $24 million.
NSSA is expanding the complex.
