RioZim and the Namibia Interdict Nobody in Zimbabwe Read

A court in Windhoek, Namibia stopped a truck. That is how this story starts. Not in Harare. Not in the High Court on Julius Nyerere Way. In a coastal Namibian town called Luderitz, in February 2024, a judge ordered that mining equipment could not be loaded and driven to Zimbabwe.

The company trying to move the equipment was a subsidiary of GEM Group, the same private equity firm that controls approximately 83 percent of RioZim Limited, Zimbabwe's most prominent distressed mining company. The Zimbabwean financial press never reported it. They should have. Because what happened at that Namibian diamond mine, eighteen months before RioZim's crisis became front‑page news in Harare, follows the same sequence of events now being alleged in Zimbabwe's own courts. Same controlling entity. Same pattern. Different country. Different judge. Same outcome: someone tried to stop assets from leaving. This is what you missed.

Elizabeth Bay is a diamond mine on the Namibian coast, about 40 kilometres south of Luderitz. It has been in and out of operation since 1911. In 2019, De Beers' Namdeb Holdings placed it under care and maintenance and sold it to a Namibian company called Lewcor Holdings. Lewcor had a plan to restart it, but needed capital. In 2020, it found an investor. RZ Murowa Holdings, identified in Namibian court papers as a subsidiary of Global Emerging Markets Group, agreed to come in. The deal closed in May 2022. GEM's RZ Murowa paid approximately US$58 million for a 78 percent controlling stake. Lewcor and its partners kept 22 percent. The investment plan was specific: NAD100 million in phase one to restart the plant, then a further NAD200 to NAD250 million in phase two to scale to 40,000 carats per month. Operations were scheduled to begin in Q4 2022.

The mine started in September 2022. It stopped in March 2023. Six months of operation. Production came in 83 percent below target, according to Windhoek High Court papers. The company recorded a loss of N$118 million in February 2023 and a further N$205 million in the following period. By May 2023, Namibia's power utility NamPower had disconnected the electricity supply.

Then something specific happened. In June 2023, three months after operations stopped, Sperrgebiet Diamond Mining sold the mine's equipment and machinery to RZ Murowa Holdings, the same GEM subsidiary that was the controlling investor. The mine's acting CEO Abraham Grobler described the transferred items as "redundant, obsolete, or used" and said the sale fulfilled "an existing contractual obligation." Lewcor's chief operating officer Thiaan Lewis went to court. In sworn affidavits filed before the Windhoek High Court, Lewis alleged that RZ Murowa was "trying to completely hollow out the mine, devalue it and make it almost impossible to resume mining operations." He further stated: "If all the assets are removed, the mine will offer no value to a potential buyer." Court records show creditors were owed money "running into hundreds of millions of dollars."

In February 2024, Judge Thomas Masuku granted the interdict. RZ Murowa was blocked from moving the assets. By late 2025, the Namibian High Court had issued a provisional liquidation order against Sperrgebiet Diamond Mining. GEM Group spent US$58 million to acquire majority control of a licensed coastal diamond mine. Eighteen months later, the mine was closed, the equipment had been transferred to a related entity, local creditors were owed hundreds of millions, and a foreign court had to physically stop the assets from leaving the country.

On September 24, 2025, the Zimbabwe Diamond and Allied Minerals Workers Union filed a formal criminal complaint with the Zimbabwe Anti‑Corruption Commission. In their complaint, the union alleged what it described as "a systemic looting scheme" operating through three specific mechanisms. According to that filing, after ZIMRA garnished RioZim's bank accounts, trading revenues were allegedly rerouted through an entity called Rio Gold (Private) Limited, using accounts at a different bank to bypass the garnishment orders. The union further alleged that RioZim sold coal mining claims from its Sengwa Colliery site three months after the Ministry of Mines formally cancelled the licence, and that the proceeds from those sales cannot be traced back to the company. A third allegation held that proceeds from the sale of a mine called One Step Mine were largely withheld from shareholders and tax authorities. RioZim has formally dismissed these allegations as "bare and unsubstantiated."

Now lay the two stories side by side. In Namibia, court filings document allegations that a GEM‑controlled company transferred assets to a related GEM entity while local creditors were unpaid, then attempted to move those assets out of the jurisdiction. In Zimbabwe, the union's complaint to ZACC separately alleges that a GEM‑controlled company rerouted revenue through a private entity to avoid government claims, sold assets after regulatory cancellation without disclosing the proceeds, and withheld proceeds from another asset sale. The same controlling entity sits at the centre of both sets of allegations. RioZim has denied the Zimbabwean allegations in their entirety. The Namibian proceedings are a matter of public court record; no finding of wrongdoing has been made in Zimbabwe.

Among the six people who died when the RioZim‑owned Cessna 206 went down near Mashava in September 2023 were Harpal Randhawa, the founder of GEM Holdings and the person who controlled RioZim; his 22‑year‑old son and only heir Amer Randhawa; senior RioZim executive George Sibanda; and a man named Vishwanath Pichumone, described in multiple reports at the time as an accountant on "temporary assignment" in Zimbabwe. No report has examined who Pichumone was, what the temporary assignment involved, or what financial work he was conducting at the time of his death. Harpal Randhawa was survived by his wife Shon Randhawa and his sister Iqrup Dhamija. Neither has appeared in any public filing related to GEM Holdings or RioZim since the crash. His only son Amer was deceased in the same accident.

Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listing requirements mandate disclosure regarding changes to ultimate beneficial ownership and governance control. Three entities collectively holding 83 percent of a publicly listed company trace their control back to a founder who is deceased and whose only heir is also deceased. Public filings have remained opaque regarding who now exercises voting control over that 83 percent block. In a 2025 opinion column published by Newsday Zimbabwe, minority shareholder Kudzayi Mutisi wrote: "The Randhawa family still controls approximately 84 percent of RioZim through various entities. While they are entitled to their majority stake, the concentration of ownership appears to have increasingly sidelined principles of good corporate governance and the interests of minority shareholders."

The 2025 annual report presents Renco mine's Q4 production as the beginning of recovery. The Chairman describes a contract mining arrangement with a third‑party partner, employee numbers up 45 percent, output ramping toward full capacity. That partner has since been identified in June 2026 market reports as Feifan Mining (Private) Limited, a Chinese contractor. RioZim's audited financial statements present the arrangement as an interest‑free loan facility of ZWG389.7 million secured against Renco's assets.

According to ZDAMWU General Secretary Justice Chinhema, as reported by Bulawayo24, the High Court granted a temporary interdict on August 5, 2025, under judgment HH 467/25, specifically to stop RioZim from disposing of assets while corporate rescue proceedings were pending. Chinhema alleged that, despite that active court order, RioZim proceeded to sell Renco Mine to Feifan Mining for US$35 million, and that the proceeds were routed through a Harare‑based law firm's trust account "possibly to avoid garnishment by tax authorities." Feifan has since taken operational control of Renco Mine.

RioZim's position, as stated by CEO Rajgopal Swami, is that the corporate rescue applications were obstacles to legitimate recapitalisation, not restraints on unlawful conduct. The company's audited financial statements describe the Feifan arrangement as a secured loan facility, not a sale. RioZim has not addressed the specific allegation that the transaction violated HH 467/25 in any public statement reviewed for this article. Bulawayo24 further reported that Swami reportedly stated at a public event in Kadoma that the agreement with Feifan is "kept secret in India" and would not be disclosed to authorities. RioZim has not publicly responded to that characterisation.

The Randhawa‑linked entities controlling 83 percent of RioZim have reportedly offered to sell that entire controlling stake for US$30 million, according to reporting by The Herald and Zimbabwe Situation in March 2026. Consider what that stake is supposed to represent: two gold mine sites, a nickel refinery, chrome claims currently generating revenue through third‑party contractors, and a 22 percent stake in Murowa Diamonds, all sitting in a country where gold is now at US$5,000 per ounce.

In 2022, the same controlling group spent US$58 million on a single Namibian mine acquisition and told Bloomberg it had allocated more than US$150 million in capital investment across its Zimbabwe assets. Four years later, the same group reportedly wants US$30 million to exit the entire Zimbabwe position. A US$30 million exit offer for 83 percent of a company holding gold mines during a historic gold bull run raises two possible readings. Either the accumulated liabilities have consumed the asset value entirely. Or the relationship between the listed assets and the revenue those assets generate has been altered in ways not yet fully reflected on the balance sheet. Both readings require scrutiny. This article does not determine which is accurate.

In October 2025, High Court Judge Catherine Bachi Mzawazi was asked to enforce a worker compensation award against RioZim. The company's lawyers argued the award could not be enforced because RioZim was under corporate rescue proceedings. The same company was simultaneously fighting in a separate courtroom to avoid being placed under corporate rescue proceedings. Justice Mzawazi was direct.

In February 2026, the Supreme Court overturned the High Court's earlier dismissal of the corporate rescue application, ruling that a company cannot claim opposing legal statuses in different courtrooms simultaneously. The legal principle the court invoked was that RioZim "cannot approbate and reprobate." RioZim's abridged results for the year ended December 31, 2025 state that the corporate rescue application was "ultimately dismissed in favour of the Company." This presents an incomplete timeline to the market. The High Court dismissal occurred in January 2026. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling in February 2026. The annual report was published after the Supreme Court ruling. The reversal is not mentioned.