Wicknell Chivayo, the flamboyant Zimbabwean businessman known for his close ties to African heads of state and an extravagant lifestyle that played out publicly on social media, died in a plane crash.
The 42-year-old, born in Harare in November 1982, had become one of the most talked-about figures in Zimbabwe, a man whose Instagram page functioned as a rolling exhibition of wealth — private jets, luxury vehicles, designer goods and high-profile gifts including cars and houses given to others.
From Wage Clerk to Boardrooms
Chivayo's beginnings were modest. He reportedly started out as a wage clerk at a Zimbabwean bus company in 1997 before moving into the largely unregulated foreign currency trade in Harare. His path to prominence was far from straightforward. In 2004, he was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison after a court found he had deceived a South African national by promising to deposit over 100,000 US dollars into his account in exchange for 46,000 US dollars in rand. He served his sentence at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.
Further controversy followed in March 2011, when state newspaper The Chronicle [reported](https://www.facebook.com/reel/2367672110708129) that Chivayo had allegedly set up fictitious websites used to collect payments from unsuspecting clients for goods that were never delivered, with the websites vanishing once money changed hands.
The Gwanda Solar Scandal
The case that drew the most sustained scrutiny centred on a 183 million US dollar contract awarded in October 2015 to his company, Intratrec Zimbabwe, by the Zimbabwe Power Company. The deal was for a 100-megawatt solar station in the southwestern Gwanda district. An advance payment of 1.2 million US dollars was released, but the project was reportedly never completed.
In September 2019, ZPC's former chairperson Stanley Kazanje was jailed for three years after a Harare court established he had accepted a 10,000 US dollar bribe from Chivayo's firm.
Despite this, when Intratrec later sued ZPC for unlawfully terminating the contract, a court ordered ZPC to pay the company 22 million US dollars in damages.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa described Chivayo as a "fly-by-night briefcase businessman" in March 2018, yet by February 2025 had shifted his characterisation, calling him a philanthropist.
Chivayo had also been photographed alongside Presidents William Ruto of Kenya, Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and the late Edgar Lungu of Zambia.
Throughout his life, Chivayo rejected suggestions of wrongdoing, insisting he was a legitimate businessman targeted by political rivals and detractors seeking relevance at his expense.
His stated ambition was to become a dollar billionaire, once remarking that great wealth brought its own peculiar burden: the daily dilemma of choosing which luxury car to drive.