ZESA Holdings Chief Executive Officer, Sydney Gata, reportedly survived an assassination attempt in the wee hours of Saturday in Harare.
According to ZimLive, a black twin cab without number plates pulled up alongside the silver-grey Mercedes carrying the 74-year-old along Airport Road and its occupants fired multiple shots at Gata.
Gata had just returned home aboard a Kenyan Airways flight and was being driven away from the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport at around 2 AM when the incident occurred.
ZimLive reported a security source saying when Gata’s Mercedes was examined, it had at least five bullet holes, but none of the shots hit Gata or his driver, who accelerated away from the twin cab.
Gata made headlines a few months ago after President Emmerson Mnangagwa suspended him together with the entire ZESA board for gross misconduct and corruption.
The president, however, reinstated 4 weeks later after an interim report from an investigation by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) cleared Gata of the four allegations of corruption.
The four accusations were as follows:
i) Self-allocation of six vehicles for personal and family use;
ii) Authorising an expenditure of zw$10 million for Christmas parties in Hwange and Kariba in 2019 without Board approval;
iii) Unilaterally installing solar equipment at his residence in Borrowdale using ZESA funds;
iv) Setting up a Trust called ZESIT to undertake several ZESA projects;
ZACC was however not done investigating allegations of interference with the probe process and alleged payment of ghost workers.