Online Reporter
Zimpapers Sports Hub
THE long-running ownership wrangle at Harare giants Dynamos could finally get a settlement today, with the Harare Magistrates Court expected to hand down a verdict on the challenge to Bernard Marriot-Lusengo’s 51 percent shareholding claims.
The DeMbare board chairman, the surviving founding father at the Harare Premiership giants, has for nearly a decade been battling factions that have been challenging his control of Dynamos Private Limited, which is the company that now owns the Harare Premiership giants.
While Marriot won at the High Court last Friday when the same faction unsuccessfully tried to scuttle the ZIFA elections on the basis that they had not sanctioned the candidate nominations made by the club, it will be a different matter in the magistrate’s court this afternoon.
He will be hoping to be absolved from allegations made by former players Garikai Zuze, the late duo of Ernest Kamba and David George, and club supporter Eric Mvududu that he manipulated the Dynamos shareholding structure and that he had fraudulently repealed DeMbare’s founding constitution of 1963.
It is alleged that Marriot manipulated the club’s share register to give himself a 51 percent share of Dynamos Private Limited’s stake, allocating other shares to undeserving people who were not the Harare giant’s original members.
The complainants have been claiming that Marriot was defying the 2005 Supreme Court order by Justice Luke Malaba, directing that Dynamos should revert to the founding constitution. The 1963 Dynamos constitution stated that the founding members and those who played for the team during its pioneering era were entitled to at least one share.
However, Marriot testified in court that he was the remaining member of the 20 individuals who founded Dynamos Football Club in 1963. He argued that upon forming the club, they prepared a constitution (the 1963 Constitution) in which they included a provision for the formation of a company that would own the football club in the future.
Marriot said it was their desire that the shares in the company would be owned by those players who founded the club as well as those who joined and played for the club in its pioneering days.
Court papers filed by his lawyer Herbert Mutasa read that in 1999, Dynamos Football Club Private Limited was incorporated, and Marriot, together with three other founding players, subscribed to one share each.
He also argued that Marriot did not unilaterally hand himself the shares, but the distribution was a result of a board meeting resolution done eight years ago. “In 2017, the Board of Directors of Dynamos Football Club (Pvt) Ltd passed a resolution to allot more shares to him to ensure that he attains 51 percent shares in the company.
“However, as appears from Exhibit 11, being Form Number CR2 of Dynamos Football Club (Pvt) Ltd date stamped 26 January 2017, only 51 ordinary shares were allotted to him. These do not constitute 51 percent of the issued share capital of Dynamos Football Club (Pvt) Ltd.
“The decision to allot the 51 shares concerned was not his decision, but that of the Board of Directors of Dynamos Football Club (Pvt) Ltd.”
Two of the complainants in the matter — Kamba and George — however, died before the matter was brought to finality.
Marriot also argued in his defence that none of the remaining complainants, who include former club treasurer Mvududu and ex-winger Zuze, fit in the category of the founding fathers or former players.
“Erickson Mvududu’s allegation to the effect that he is a member of the executive committee of Dynamos Football Club on the alleged ground that he was appointed as such by a purported Board of Trustees, which was put in place post 14 March 2009, is unsustainable because the 1963 Constitution of Dynamos Football Club making provision for the Board of Trustees had long been repealed.
“None of the three complainants mentioned herein falls within the category of individuals who would be entitled to be allotted one share in Dynamos Football Club.
“In any event, even if they were eligible for the shares, the responsibility to allot those shares was not his, but that of the Board of Trustees; therefore, he cannot be criminalised for the fact that the complainants were not allotted the one share each,” reads the papers filed by Marriot’s lawyer, Mutasa.
Earlier in the week, Magistrate Yeukai Dzuda also heard the state’s case against Marriot before deferring her ruling to today.
During cross-examination, the State, led by Dzidzai Josiah, read a Supreme Court judgment that states that the club should be run in terms of its 1963 constitution.
A section in the club’s constitution states that former players (one of whom is a complainant in the matter) are entitled to a one percent share.
The state also said Marriot held an extraordinary meeting in the absence of the complainants and repealed the 1963 constitution.
