Whilst still gathered at the deceased’s homestead in
Domboshava and before his burial, we were approached by Darangwa who indicated
to the family that she was an attorney and in possession of the deceased’s will
that he had left behind in her custody which among other things provided that
he be the testamentary executrix to the deceased’s ’state.
The family was surprised by the news of the will since the
deceased never mentioned anything to do with writing his own will to any member
of the family.
We were therefore bewildered by the talk of a will, coming
as it did amidst mourning, shock and immense media publicity due to the
popularity of the deceased. In interactions between the family and Darangwa
before and on November 25, we told her that we were not ready to quickly accept
the will as having been made by the deceased.
On November 25, a meeting about the deceased’s estate was
held at the Master of High Court’s office. Anderson, Neria, Darangwa and I
attended the said meeting but before on the same day, Darangwa unduly
influenced the family to accept the will and threatened that if as the family
we chose to reject it and her executorship, we would have tarnished her
reputation as a lawyer and she was prepared to sue us and subject the estate to
unwanted delays even all the way up to Supreme Court level.
She in the same vein attempted placate the family by
dangling an offer that the family should sign a special power of attorney
entitling me to administer the entire estate of the deceased.
The family accepted the will and recommended her
appointment in terms thereof as executrix testamentary only because Darangwa
influenced us to do so.
When we suggested a need to seek legal advice before
expressing our views about the will to the Master of High Court, Darangwa
dissuaded us citing that that was unnecessary since we already had her as a
lawyer.
The Master of High Court accepted the will, produced by
Darangwa to be the deceased’s will in terms of section 8(5) of the Wills Act
(6:06).
The Master of High Court also appointed Darangwa as
testamentary executrix to the deceased’s estate in terms of the will that he
had accepted.
The family worked with Darangwa from the date of her
appointment as executrix testamentary, albeit reluctantly, simply because she
is the de facto and current executrix testamentary to the deceased’s estate.
However, the family remained with unanswered questions
regarding the said will, a copy of which she never furnished the family.
Sometime in January 2021 and after the national lockdown
had been introduced, the family decided to get legal advice and engaged the
current legal practitioners who advised us of the need to get a copy of the
will first to analyze its contents as well as to get the minutes of the meeting
of November 25 and other relevant information.
Darangwa refused to avail the will citing that her offices
were closed due to the lockdown, we only got a copy of the will upon written
request to the Master of High Court.
The Master of High Court availed to us the will that he
accepted, the minutes of what transpired on November 25, the inventory as well
as the waiver of security contained in his records.
It is noteworthy that according to the minutes, the will
was drafted by Darangwa, the same will confers an executorship benefit to her
in terms of clause 2 thereof.
During the national lockdown, Darangwa attended to disposal
of the deceased’s Lamborghini motor vehicle in hazy circumstances.
This Darangwa did without filing with the Master of High
Court a detailed inventory of the deceased’s assets in terms of a distribution
account that was never filed with nor approved by the Master of High Court.
This was without advertising the said distribution account
in terms of which she sought to dispose of the said Lamborghini vehicle.
My father, my sister and I, as the surviving blood
relatives of the deceased who died intestate, have a prima face right to
inherit and benefit from the deceased’s estate.
We are entitled to protect our interest in the deceased’s
estate in line with our constitutional right to equal benefit and protection of
the law.
The document produced as the deceased’s will is a nullity
as it does not meet the requirements of s8(1) and s8(5) of the Wills Act
(6:06).
The testamentary executorship of Darangwa, emanating as it
does from such a document, is also a nullity. All the acts of Darangwa
regarding the deceased’s estate are a nullity. There is need to expeditiously
stop Darangwa in her illegal tracks.
Darangwa is already in the process of permanently disposing
of the deceased’s assets during and within the current national lockdown and
without following due process of law, a case in point being her recent disposal
of the deceased’s Lamborghini vehicle in terms of a distribution account which
was neither availed to, nor approved by the Master of High Court and without a
proper inventory.
The deceased’s biggest investment namely Quick Gases in
Botswana, is at the risk of liquidation over a loan owing to FNB Bank, Botswana
after it totally closed operations because the said bank froze the company’s
account over issues respecting the legitimacy of Darangwa and who should be
appointed as the signatory on the company account after the deceased’s demise.
FNB Bank, Botswana has given the family a period of only up
to March 31, 2021 within which to exhaustively deal with the question of the
legitimacy of the executrix and within which unquestionable signatories to the
bank account as well as the company directors can be appointed.
Failure to deal with the issues highlighted is such that
the company will be subjected to foreclosure and liquidation of assets by the
said bank to recover the debt owing to it.
The gas business in Botswana is such that every gas company
has its cylinders into which they exclusively fill gas when transacting with
customers.
In other words, every company only sells gas by filling in
a gas tank belonging to, every gas tank bears the colour and brand of the
company from which it emanates, I have been informed by one of the company’s
employees that already there are some malcontents who are mopping up the
company’s branded cylinders from the customers for resale in Zimbabwe.
The end result is that if the company remains closed, by
the time it reopens, its customer base will have drastically dwindled.
The company, at the time it closed operations, had more
than 10 000 gas cylinders in circulation among its customers in Botswana.
Darangwa is dissipating the deceased’s estate to the
permanent and irreparable prejudice of the family when her appointment as
executrix by and the will she produced to the Master of High Court are both a
nullity.
The will makes reference to some persons without stating
their actual/official identities the deceased’s Lamborghini vehicle, arrived in
Zimbabwe around 30 November September 2020.
If claims that he instructed Darangwa to draft a will are
true, it is not logical that the deceased would bequeath such an expensive
vehicle to a shadowy third party exactly 23 days after importing it the
deceased had a fleet of expensive cars.
It is curious that none of the rest of his cars is
mentioned in the will. Further, there is not even the registration number of
the Lamborghini vehicle mentioned in the said will.
The lawyer always lied that she is an attorney until we
recently found out that she is not. Her credibility is immediately called into
question.
Darangwa never wanted to avail a copy of the will in
question to us or to our legal practitioner until we got it through the Master of
High Court.
The impugned decision of the Master of High Court and his
appointment of the Darangwa cannot stand. The court should declare that the
deceased died intestate. He did not make/leave behind any will.
The produced will is fake. I pray it be declared null and
void. I also seek revocation of Darangwa’s appointment as testamentary
executrix, hence this application.
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