HARARE – Businessman Fredrick Mutanda has accused the government of grabbing his Harare hospital, St Annes, which was officially re-opened by Vice President and health minister Constantino Chiwenga on Monday.

The independence war veteran says he owns St Annes through pharmaceutical company, CAPS Holdings, where he has majority shareholding.

He told ZimLive on Monday: “They’re pretending that they’ve given the hospital to the Roman Catholic nuns, Little Company of Mary, with a board appointed by the government. CAPS, which has 115 other shareholders, owns St Annes. The government has no shareholding in CAPS. So how do they appropriate private property and start parcelling it out?”

The 65-bed St Annes had been lying derelict for years, and the government announced its takeover in March last year.

Sakunda Holdings, owned by the petroleum millionaire Kudakwashe Tagwirei, carried out renovation work and kitted the hospital which has been designated as a Covid-19 isolation centre.

Chiwenga cut a ribbon on Monday, officially re-opening the facility which was already taking patients. He said the hospital was being handed over to the Catholic nuns to run it, alongside a government-appointed board chaired by businessman Nigel Chanakira.

But Mutanda, 64, is furious over the developments and blames Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya for misleading politicians about both the government’s interest in CAPS and by extension the hospital.

In a letter to State Security Minister Owen Ncube, shared with this reporter, Mutanda asked: “What’s the difference between invading my farm and this? What am I supposed to do as a citizen?”

Mutanda’s farm was invaded by Zanu PF youths last month after he went to court challenging President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s plan to extend the term of Chief Justice Luke Malaba beyond the retirement age of 70. The farm invaders were repelled by police after ministers intervened.

Tracing the history of CAPS Holdings and St Annes Hospital, Mutanda said it was in 2003 that auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers first mentioned to CAPS management that the nuns were selling St Annes.

The Celebration Centre, a church then known as Hear the Word Ministries, had signed an agreement of sale for St Annes but had failed to raise the cash to complete the transaction.

Mutanda remembers: “We as CAPS shared auditors with St Annes. So in one of the meetings the auditors asked if CAPS Holdings would be interested in buying the hospital. I was the major shareholder, so management approached us and said we don’t have money but there’s an opportunity.

“I extended personal funds to the company to buy the hospital in cash, and we bought the hospital as CAPS Holdings. It was around US$11 million and that money was paid to the Little Company of Mary head office in the Republic of Ireland. They were selling their hospitals worldwide.”

In 2007, Mutanda said he was invited to a meeting of the Joint Operations Command. Present were army generals, state security minister Didymus Mutasa and the governor of the central bank at the time Gideon Gono.

According to Mutanda: “They said wanted to buy a stake in CAPS Holdings. In fact they wanted the entire shareholding. I told them I can’t make money out of that transaction, but wouldn’t mind selling part of it and the remainder later on. We shook hands with the generals and they instructed the RBZ to go ahead and negotiate with me.

“I went to the RBZ and met Gono and his staff. I told them I would sell 25 percent of the company to the government. Before they had paid, they got Munyaradzi Kereke and Millicent Mombeshora to be directors.”

In 2011, Mutanda said he was abducted and an attempt was made to kill him, he believes by people acting at the behest of the central bank.

“I released a statement to the media through my children. They turned around and said I had stolen from CAPS and was under arrest. They said I wasn’t a Zimbabwean, I had three passports. They made up a lot of stuff and for a while I was frozen out of my own company, CAPS,” the former ZIPRA combatant remembers.

In a chance meeting with Chiwenga at a restaurant in Harare, Mutanda says the then Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander told him that his troubles were because he had reneged on their CAPS agreement.

Mutanda added: “I protested and told him that it was in fact the RBZ that failed to honour the agreement.

“In 2015, the RBZ agreed that what they had done was wrong. Through then President Robert Mugabe, we agreed to renegotiate and he assigned Mangudya to deal with the matter.

“Mangudya made an offer, which they failed to honour again. He told me part of the money was in treasury bills which had not matured. They then tried to pay in bond notes, which I rejected outright. They have not paid for any stake in CAPS up to this day.”

In November last year, the minister of industry and commerce appointed a board for CAPS, but the company went to court and won.

“CAPS is not their company and they cannot appoint a board for St Annes, itself owned by a private company. CAPS is owned by its shareholders, and the company owns St Annes which was bought from the same Little Company of Mary that now gets back the same property it sold. It’s completely illegal,” Mutanda said.

A request for a comment left with the Roman Catholic Church head office in Harare had not been answered.