Wicknell Chivayo and his wife, Lucy Muteke, were among six people killed in a helicopter crash in the Marondera rural area east of Harare on Wednesday, state broadcaster ZBC reported. Chivayo was a businessman close to the ruling ZANU-PF party, and his company won a government energy contract worth more than $170 million.
Police said the helicopter crashed about 72km (45 miles) east of Harare at around 1500 GMT. It had left the family home in Gandami, about 144 km (89 miles) from the capital. No one aboard survived, government spokesman Nick Mangwana said.
The crash and the passengers
Family spokesperson Herbert Chivayo confirmed the couple’s deaths to ZBC. “When it crashed, it burst into flames,” he said. He also said: “There were five people. There were two pilots, his security aide, the wife and Chivayo.”
Police said in a statement on X that six people were aboard, but didn't immediately confirm their identities. Mangwana wrote on X that the helicopter crash involved “one high-profile businessman, three other passengers, and two pilots.” He said police would confirm the victims’ identities in due course.
The statements gave different passenger counts. Herbert Chivayo described five people aboard, while police reported six. Mangwana’s account also put the total at six: the businessman, three other passengers and two pilots.
A contract backed by the state
Chivayo, 43, was a prominent figure among conspicuously wealthy businessmen with ties to ZANU-PF. The party has held power in the mineral-rich country since independence in 1980. His connections with President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the ruling party had fuelled public cynicism, the report said.
Chivayo’s company, Intratrek Zimbabwe, won a more than $170 million government contract in 2015 to build a 100-megawatt solar plant in Gwanda, in the southwest. The state-run power utility later sought to terminate the deal because of delays. The Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the contract was valid, and the government ordered last month that it should proceed.
The project’s continuation followed a series of state actions: the government awarded a public contract to a company linked to a ruling-party figure, the utility tried to end the deal over delays, the Supreme Court upheld it, and the government ordered the work to proceed. The reported contract value was more than $170 million. The account didn't state how much had been paid or whether construction had begun.
Wealth and hardship
Chivayo’s social-media displays and high-profile gifts helped raise his public profile. Weeks before the crash, he donated a Rolls-Royce, a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and a Maybach to a Zimbabwean preacher and the preacher’s wife. He had also given another church $2 million in cash, buses and cars at a ceremony where he was filmed showing bundles of banknotes.
The report described the lavish lifestyles of businessmen close to the ruling party as sharply contrasting with widespread economic hardship. It didn't provide figures for the scale of that hardship or identify workers involved in the solar project.
Chivayo spent three years in jail around two decades ago after a money-laundering conviction. He also had connections with leaders of Ewastini, Kenya and Uganda. The crash killed him and Muteke alongside four other people, according to police’s count; the identities of all those aboard hadn't been immediately confirmed.