Paul Nyathi|Acting President Constantino Chiwenga on Monday led a Government delegation that received an Air Zimbabwe Jet from Malaysia at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport.

After receiving the aircraft, the Acting President handed it over to the Airzim management led by company administrator Mr Reggie Saruchera.

Amidst all the fun and flare at the ceremony, Chiwenga and his entourage deliberately ignored to mention that the plane which was being tagged as a new delivery for Air Zimbabwe was not being delivered into the country for the first time.

The 300-seater plane, which touched down at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport yesterday, is the same plane that was received by former finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa on April 11, 2018 then on behalf of a newly established government wholly-owned special purpose vehicle, Zimbabwe Aviation Leasing Company, which, in turn, was said to be leasing the aircraft to another new government owned company, Zimbabwe Airways.

Government had decided to lease out the planes to its newly-created firm, Zimbabwe Airways, in order to allow Airzim — then saddled with a $300 million debt — time to recover.

“Zimbabwe Aviation Leasing Company, which is 100 percent owned by the Government, is leasing the new Boeing 777 to Zimbabwe Airways, which is also wholly owned by the Government,” said Chinamasa at the time.

In June of the same year, the new Boeing 777 bought using state funds was returned to Malaysia without making a single flight.

The purchase of the plane and three others from Malaysian Airways was negotiated by late former president Robert Mugabe’s son-in-law, Simba Chikore.

The national carrier Air Zimbabwe was at the time not chosen to take on the new planes, not least because it was bankrupt.

Government with advise from Chikore had set up Zimbabwe Airways to operate the new aircraft believing that the new company would not inherit the state airline’s massive debts.

Malaysia Airlines lost two of its B777s months apart in 2014 – one shot down by a missile over Ukraine and another which vanished off the radar and crashed into the sea through what investigators concluded were the deliberate actions of the captain.

While the accidents were not the plane’s fault, Malaysian Airlines could not believe their bad luck with the B777s and decided to retire them in March 2016.

Zimbabwe negotiated to buy four of the planes at a total cost of $70 million.

The Zimbabwe Airways’ formation was something of a scandal in Zimbabwe. For a long time, the government had claimed that it was a private company – before ministers finally admitted that the company was state-owned.

The government had planned to hide its interest in the airline to avoid creditors attaching the aircraft. Zimbabwe Airways would have taken over overseas routes long abandoned by the ailing Air Zimbabwe, including Harare-London and Harare-Beijing.

Transport Minister Joel Matiza announced that Zimbabwe Airways would be merged with Air Zimbabwe, but within days of that announcement, Air Zimbabwe went into administration. The administrator then announced that Air Zimbabwe, wholly owned by the government, was looking for private investors.

Talks about merging the two airlines had collapsed after a nominee shareholder in Zimbabwe Airways demanded to be paid US$2 million by the government.

Harare lawyer Phillipa Phillips, who was listed as a Zimbabwe Airways director, wrote to the Transport Ministry informing them that the merger would not proceed unless she is paid US$2 million.

A nominee shareholder is an ostensible or registered owner who holds shares on behalf of the actual owner (beneficial owner) under a custodial agreement. It was not immediately clear who in this case the actual owner was.

Seeing problems with Zimbabwe Airways, government tried to cancel the deal for the four planes with Malaysia but Malaysian Airlines turned down the request to reverse a deal for the purchase of two Boeing 777 planes and threatened to take legal action for breach of contract.

Government initially entered into a deal in 2017 for the purchase of four jetliners, but later wanted to negotiate for two after failing to raise US$70 million for all of them.

The planes, which were initially sourced for Zimbabwe Airways (ZimAirways), are now the same planes that are being set towards the revival of the troubled flag carrier Air Zimbabwe.

Transport minister Joel Biggie Matiza travelled to Kuala Lumpur earlier last year to try and sell the new government position to the Malaysian Airlines executives without success.

He later told a media briefing in Harare that government would now proceed with the original deal for the four planes.

Harare had paid for one plane in full and made a 10% deposit for the other. It had not commenced payments for the remaining two.

Matiza’s proposal was shot down by Malaysian Airlines, which said government has no choice but to honour the subsisting contract or risk facing legal action for breach of contract.

“The issue is that the Malaysians did not want the original agreement altered and insisted on honouring the contract. Even before the trip to Malaysia was made, everyone knew that there was a high possibility for the authorities there to threaten legal action,” a government source said. “They were told that the 2017 sale agreement was legally binding and Zimbabwe risked blacklisting by foreign airlines if it does not revert to the original plan.”

The planes are now being delivered into the country in the name of Air Zimbabwe and not Zimbabwe Airways.

What, however, baffles the mind is how in all this, the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission remains silent and watches government play around with people’s minds claiming delivery of the same plane twice.

In November last year, ZACC briefly arrested former Transport Minister Joram Gumbo for criminal abuse of office over the Zimbabwe Airways deal which saw Government losing millions of dollars.

The arrest appears to have since fizzled into thin air.