By Farai D Hove | The Chief Executive Officer of the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency, Douglas Tawanda Munatsi has been killed in a house fire just before meeting his boss, Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday.
The tragic incident happened early morning Monday at his flat in the capital, Harare.
Munatsi was the co-founder of ABC Holdings (now BancABC), since its formation in 2000, until its acquisition by Atlas Mara in 2014, and at the time of his death, he was the chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA).
He was appointed to the position by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2019.
Munatsi’s sudden death follows his office’s badly attended function in Glasgow, Scotland on the sidelines of the COP26 Climate Change Conference. The investment conference was attended by a paltry 43 people at a time when the presidential entourage to the UN conference was a whopping 126 persons.
When he attended his Investment Conference in Glasgow, the late Munatsi revealed he has been a diasporan for the last 2 decades. He announced saying he has been outside the country for the last 20 years. “I have lived in South Africa for the last 20 years and I am amazed at the level of construction,” he said.
Below is the trail of events as narrated by the Northfields Owners Association Chairperson, C Gardiner:
The association wishes to advise stakeholders that at approximately 02.50AM, on Monday 29th November, a fire was detected by the occupant of flat C9 in Northfields.
There was no electricity at the time due to a cable fault.
The occupant in C10 heard commotion and noise, and went to his balcony to investigate further.
There, he heard from the occupant of C9 that there was a fire and he asked to call the fire brigade.
At 02.59, the fire brigade was called, and they arrived at 03.11.
They fought the blaze for 2 hrs, and despite their efforts, they were unable to save the occupant of C9, who is believed to be Mr Douglas Munatsi.
Thanks must be given to the professionalism and endeavors of the City of Harare Fire Brigade. Without their intervention, is it very likely that more lives would have been lost and more property destroyed.
The Association has engaged the services of a forensic fire investigator to assess the cause the of the fire.
Chairman
Northfields Owners Association
29 November, 2021