The Observer - 9 March 2014 - 9
leadership split into two opposing camps this week
as an unprecedented battle for control of the
country’s economic levers spilled into the open,
threatening a fragile political unity painstakingly
hammered out after a 1980s armed conflict.” In the
same article, Nkomo was reported as saying – “The
young man (Masiyiwa) was running around (setting
up his cellular phone infrastructure) and now they
are taking things from him. This is not acceptable.”
Moore recalls that news of the award of the
cellular license to Telecel was a very big blow to the
morale of the Econet team.
“I think one of the most – the thing that affected
me and that I remember especially when I’m being
faced with defeat and bad news and adversity, I
remember when we lost the tender which we had
worked day and night on for about two months –
and when I say and night, Strive himself worked
for 20 hours a day. I don’t know where he gets the
energy, I don’t know how he stays awake.” …. “And
we put in an excellent tender. I mean it was – we
got Ericsson, it was done in a very professional
way and, it was never a waste, because very soon
after we did the (Zimbabwe) tender, we did the
Botswana tender for the network. When we won
that (Botswana) tender, it was amazing how the
framework of the tender was duplicated. At the
time when we lost, we all sort of sat back, and it
was like the elections had been lost, and wondered
how we had ever thought that it would be a fair
tender. I mean, we really did question ourselves. So
after three initial days – and I’ll never forget the first
day because it was a sad Saturday, we thought that
after they actually saw what Econet were capable
of doing they would have to admit that this was the
company to do it, and they didn’t, and it was like
three days later that all of a sudden, Strive came
in with a smile on his face, a lot of energy, and
said: Right, we’re going to inspect the tender, we’re
off to find out why Telecel won that tender, and
we’re going to question it if it’s not right.” …….
“And that time with the team was one of the best
as well, because it was hilarious, and everybody
had their little section where you had to pick their
(Telecel’s) tender document to pieces” … “And
their marketing plan for instance, I think theirs was
three pages long, ours was a 56 page document
with detailed retail outlets, you know, with detailed
marketing plans because, of course, we’d gone into
all that before. We had clear ideas about how we
were going to market the product. They had no
retail outlets, they had no marketing plan, they got
70%, I think we got 25% or something. That was
the most glaring one.” ….. “By the time we put
our document together, it was about a 1,000 (page)
document to submit to the courts to appeal and to
say that there had been unfair marking” (Marion
Moore – Interview transcript).
Around this time, there was a transition in
the leadership of Econet’s legal team. Eastwood,
who had been leading the team from Kantor &
Immerman, had to stop working because of a
family crisis. A young lawyer, Tawanda Nyambirai,
took over the leadership. The strategy they
outlined after the announcement of the award
of the second license to Telecel was to fight the
government in the High Court over corruption in
the licensing process, rather than continuing the
battle in the Supreme Court. Nic Rudnick, a white
South African who was now settled in Zimbabwe,
had worked on the Econet case under Eastwood
since 1995 and continued to do so later under
Nyambirai. He described the atmosphere in the law
firm and in Econet during the court battles,
“Well, there was a great sense of feeling
amongst the team that this was a principle case,
it was a case for justice, it was a case against
corruption, and there were excesses at that stage of
the Zimbabwean government. And it was a fairly
young firm, so there was, I’d say, a