Zimbabwe: Minister implicated in dwindling black rhino report
From The ZIMDAILY News

Tue, 08 May 2007 00:41:00

Theresa Nkala


POLICY implementation minister Webster Shamu has been fingered by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks as the brains behind the dwindling black rhino population in Hwange.

Shamu is the front for Prince Harry girfriend's father, Charles Davy, who has accumulated a multimillion-dollar fortune through HKK Safaris, a vast hunting concession in that area.

In a confidential report, Morris Mtsambiwa, the national parks chief, fell short of suggesting the arrest of Shamu and his subsequent trial.

"More than 3 000 black rhinos were in conservancies controlled by HKK Safaris in December 2004. There were less than 1 500 left as of January 5 this year," he said. "HKK Safaris, which controls the conservancies, has not been able to give a plausible explanation.

Police have not been able to move in, citing 'instructions from the top'," reads part of Mtsambiwa's report seen by ZimDaily. "Unless the subject of our investigation (Minister Shamu) is kept out of the way, we will not be able to make progress."

He cited political interference as the stumbling block in their efforts to take remedial action.

Shamu and his business partner Davy, are believed to be smuggling rhino horns to the Far East where ivory is in demand.

Shamu, in connivance with the police chief Augustine Chihuri, is having police officers who dare investigate the goings-on at the conservancies, transferred. A chief superintendent based in Hwangwe, Ernest Simukoya, was transferred last month to Mwenezi as he had started breathing behind the minister's back. A sergeant and two constables have also been transferred to various police posts during the last few weeks.

That has forced police officers in Hwange to throw professionalism out through the window.

Shamu, once described by a Bulawayo-based economist as "an absolute hood", is an unpredictable character, well-known for instilling fear in his opponents.

The policy implementation minister left Rhodesia in 1974 for Kinshasa, in then Zaire, for the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman boxing bout but never returned home fearing arrest as he had swindled scores of Asian traders in Salisbury, the then capital of the southern African state. He joined the independence war in Mozambique only for him to return home in 1979 under a new name, Charles Ndhlovu.

He kept that name until when it was impossible for anybody to bring up the fraud charges against him. But that was not before he was up for another 99 counts of fraud in the late Eighties, which he all denied and because of his close connection to the ZANU PF government, they all failed to stick. They were dropped at the behest of the then prime minister Robert Mugabe.

The only censure he got from Mugabe was the loss of a ministerial position. It was not long before Ndhlovu, who had now assumed his original name, Webster Shamu, was plucked from political obscurity. In 2002, he landed policy implementation portfolio.

In 2004, government announced it was investigating Davy, Shamu's business partner, for illegal currency dealings, after revelations by an undercover British journalist that money generated from the hunting business was being kept out of the country.

The journalist, Caroline Graham, from United Kingdom's Mail on Sunday, witnessed endangered species of animals, among the black rhinos, being killed barbarically for their horns.

Following the revelations, Davy immediately "sold" his holding in HKK Safaris but insiders say it was a ruse to put Zimbabwean authorities off his tracks.

HKK charges mostly American clients US$30 000 for a 24-day shooting expedition and according to the Mail journalist, "all the money is kept offshore."

Ade Langley, a professional hunter then working for HHK, was quoted as saying: "Less than 20 percent of your dollars will ever enter Zimbabwe. All the money is kept offshore."

That prompted the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe-led smokescreen investigations. Nothing came out of that. In the meantime, the black rhino population continues to dwindle, throughout the country, because of the likes of Shamu.

What a load of pure

Zimbabwe's rhino population was down to 300 by the time former Parks Director Wilas Makombe had finished with it in 1995. The population has slowly climed up to about 400, but poaching began in ernest again in 2002- on conservancies occupied by so called "War Veterans".

Of all the areas hunted or operated by HHK on one- Lemco has any rhino and none have been poached from there- unlike all the government controled areas.

Just to add my idignant "BS" to that. If it wasn't for conservancies like Lemco there would likely be no rhino at all.

Don't you just love black logic?

It is always a mystery as to who is the biggest liar.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathi:
Shamu and his business partner Davy, are believed to be smuggling rhino horns to the Far East where ivory is in demand.

quote:

Originally posted by Kathi:Ade Langley, a professional hunter then working for HHK, was quoted as saying: "Less than 20 percent of your dollars will ever enter Zimbabwe. All the money is kept offshore."

What are the chances this guy will ever work again?

Mark,

Ade Langley is conducting a safari in Chete for HHK right now. The article by the Mail reporter was a witch hunt.