Evidence emerges that Zanu PF held a secret 45 percent stake in tycoon Kudakwashe Tagwirei's Sakunda Holdings

Leaked financial documents partially support an explosive claim made by Zimbabwe's Vice President Constantino Chiwenga that the ruling Zanu PF party secretly held a 45 percent stake in Sakunda Holdings, the fuel giant controlled by businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei, according to a new investigation by The Sentry.

The investigation, published last week, is the first detailed forensic examination of the corporate and financial paper trail behind Chiwenga's September 2025 allegation. In a seven-page dossier submitted to the Zanu PF politburo that year, the vice president accused Tagwirei of stealing and concealing the party's stake, which he said was held through a vehicle called Mvuto Investments under the National Reconstruction Group.

The Sentry found that Mvuto Investments was real. In 2014, the company's shareholders were Happyton Bonyongwe, then director-general of Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation, and two former ministers: Walter Chidhakwa and Joel Biggie Matiza. The connection between a spy chief and two cabinet members as shareholders of an investment vehicle linked to a Zanu PF energy company raises questions that Zanu PF's legal secretary, Ziyambi Ziyambi, has not adequately answered. Ziyambi denied the party held shares in Sakunda but stayed conspicuously silent about the National Reconstruction Group and Mvuto Investments.

Sakunda's own official records are ambiguous. Zimbabwe's corporate registry, which frequently carries outdated filings, makes no mention of Mvuto Investments as a shareholder. The company's chief operating officer has told parliament that Tagwirei owns 54 percent of Sakunda with the remaining 46 percent held by his wife, Sandra Mpunga. But a source with access to relevant information told The Sentry that Tagwirei himself acknowledged the company was not solely his, saying the president, referring to Mnangagwa, was also an owner.

The financial comparison The Sentry was able to make suggests that if Zanu PF did hold a stake, it saw very little from it. Between 2014 and 2017, Tagwirei personally received 23.7 million US dollars in offshore payments from Trafigura, Sakunda's joint venture partner. Over the same period, any 45 percent shareholder of Sakunda Holdings would have received under 1 million dollars from dividends. That gap suggests significant cash was flowing to Tagwirei personally rather than to party-linked shareholders. Trafigura has called the details presented to it by journalists factually inaccurate. Tagwirei denied all accusations made to him by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project but did not respond to The Sentry.

Tagwirei, who founded Sakunda in 2005 and grew it into a dominant force in Zimbabwe's fuel import and distribution sector, has been a close ally of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and is widely believed to be positioning himself as a potential successor. He was sanctioned by the US Treasury in August 2020. His political elevation has accelerated: in March 2025, the Zanu PF Harare provincial committee recommended his co-option into the party's Central Committee, and the appointment was ratified at the annual conference in October 2025.

The Chiwenga-Tagwirei dispute is at the heart of a bitter succession struggle inside the ruling party. Chiwenga, who led the 2017 military coup that brought Mnangagwa to power, has since become his most dangerous internal rival. The Sakunda allegation was one element in a broader dossier accusing Tagwirei of looting more than 1.9 billion US dollars from public funds.