The estate agent said to have facilitated the tenancy of Zimbabwe Airways at Mavis Gumbo’s mansion has denied any knowledge of the deal. ...
The estate agent said to have facilitated the tenancy of
Zimbabwe Airways at Mavis Gumbo’s mansion has denied any knowledge of the deal.
Transport Minister, Joram Gumbo confirmed that his niece, Mavis, is Zimbabwe Aviation Leasing Company’s and ZimAirways’ landlord. But he claimed that
the two went through an estate agent in a manner that was above board.
“Mavis is my niece. She has her house and she wanted to
lease it out through estate agents. The ZimAirways guys stumbled on the house
without her or my knowledge and they liked it. It was a purely business deal,”
Gumbo told The Standard.
Mavis claimed in a brief interview that the two entities
got the lease through an estate agent called Letbill Realty. But Letbill Realty folded in 2017 upon the
death of one of its directors and a surviving co-director, Clemence Chidziva,
confirmed this.
Chidziva dismissed claims that their now-defunct agency had
facilitated the lease of Mavis’s property to ZimAirways and Zalc.
The only time the real estate company had dealt with Mavis
was some years ago when she sought to sell a different property, but the deal
did not materialise.
“We closed the business and are not collecting any
management fees from any property as we speak,” Chidziva said.
“We briefly dealt with Mavis Gumbo many years ago when she
wanted to sell one of her properties along Enterprise Road (Harare). The deal
fell through and that’s all I remember.”
He said he had never dealt with ZimAirways or their representatives
in any way.
Mavis, who has been largely media-shy on the purported
lease agreement, refused to shed more light on the deal with ZimAirways and
Zalc.
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