HARARE – The Supreme Court described businessman Farai Matsika as “devious” and “dishonest” as it threw out his bid to appeal a High Court ruling dismissing his claim of a 30 percent stake in Croco Holdings, owners of Croco Motors.

Matsika is involved in a bitter fight with his cousin, Moses Chingwena, over the control of the company.

Justice Owen Tagu of the High Court had accused Matsika of using “fraudulent documents” to support his shareholding claim.

Matsika applied for condonation of late noting of an appeal and extension of time within which to file a notice of appeal at the Supreme Court.

On Monday, Justice Chinembiri Bhunu threw out the application which he said had no prospects of success.

Bhunu said Matsika’s “shenanigans portray him as a dishonest, devious person who is prepared to twist the truth in order to advance his nefarious cause”, adding: “In light of his deceitful character, the learned judge a quo (Justice Tagu) cannot be faulted for holding that Matsika’s cause was founded on lies and fraudulent documents. That finding is amply supported by the evidence on record.”

The judge also attacked Matsika and his lawyers of being naive and incompetent in his judgement delivered Monday morning.

“In the final analysis no fault or misdirection can be laid at the learned judge a quo’s door in his treatment of the substantive issues and verdict,” said Justice Bhunu.

“In view of Matsika’s deplorable unbecoming behaviour in manufacturing fraudulent documents to deceive the court, costs at the punitive scale were eminently deserved in the court a quo. In the current proceedings before me there is no reason for departure from the general rule that costs follow the result.

“In the final analysis I hold that the appellants have no reasonable prospects of success on appeal. It is accordingly ordered that the application for condonation of late noting of appeal and extension of time within which to make an appeal be and is hereby dismissed with costs.”

Justice Bhunu said Matsika’s conduct in providing fraudulent evidence could only aggravate matters to his detriment.

“This is therefore a proper case where the naivety of the applicants’ lawyers was properly visited on their clients as the applicants were not entirely free from blame,” the judge said.

Matsika had in his appeal argued that Justice Tagu had made a number of mistakes in concluding that he had no legitimate claim to the Croco shareholding.

He said the High Court erred and grossly misdirected itself on the facts and on the evidence in finding that the application before it was based on material falsehoods.

Matsika sought the setting aside of the High Court ruling and demanded a forensic audit and valuation of Croco Holdings and 39 other entities, at the end of which he wanted the value of his shareholding paid out.

The businessman claimed that he had built the Croco business empire for 26 years while his cousin Chingwena was working at LCZ, Century Bank, and Discount House, which all later closed.

But court found that he had produced doctored documents to substantiate a false claim.

Justice Tagu ruled that his “entire application was anchored on dishonesty.”

While Matsika had claimed that Phibeon Gwatidzo of Baker Tilly Gwatidzo Chartered Accountants was the shares transferring secretary in 2006, it later emerged through Gwatidzo’s secretary that the accounting firm was not yet in existence at the time.

Justice Tagu ruled that by extension of logic, he needed to explain why the share capital amount was expressed in United States currency, which was not in use in Zimbabwe until 2009.

The judge said they also should have taken the court into their confidence and explained how Baker Tilly Gwatidzo Chartered Accountants could have executed the share transfer documents in May 2006 when that firm only come into existence six years later in 2012.

Advocate Tawanda Zhuwarara represented Matsika while advocates Thabani Mpofu, Silvester Hashiti and Tafadzwa Mapuranga appeared for Chingwena and Croco Motors.

Matsika is also embroiled in another nasty shareholding scrap at Doves Funeral Services.