Vincent Pamire

Pamire was appointed acting ZIFA chairperson after the board passed a no confidence vote in Leo Mugabe.

The decision to oust Mugabe was taken in his absence as he is travelling with the women's football team which took part in the Confederation of African Football in Nigeria. Mugabe had been heading Zifa since 1993.^[3]

Suspension

In 2018, the Zimbabwe Football Association provisionally expelled Pamire together with Trevor Carelse-Juul, Eusebio Maseko and Rafiq Khan from partaking in any association football-related activities in Zimbabwe for violating the ZIFA constitution.

The resolution was unanimously made by the ZIFA Executive Committee at its meeting on the 13th of April 2018.

Reasons for the expulsion are as follows:

1. Peddling falsehoods and unfounded allegations against legally elected leadership in a bid to overthrow a legitimately installed leadership.

2. Establishment of illegal parallel structures meant to destabilise legitimate administration structures and attempting to wrestle power from elected.

3. Absolute disdain and disregard for the ZIFA constitution and the ZIFA Rules and Regulations. The expelled individuals’ conduct intransigently violates Article 2(e), (f) and Article 7 of the ZIFA constitution.^[4]

Fraud Charges

Vincent Pamire was convicted of fraud after he received a total of US$222 970 on four occasions from Ugandan firm, Victoria Steel, in which he was a director to pay Ziscosteel for exported steel, but pocketed the foreign currency.

Victoria Steel had bought thousands of tonnes of steel from Zimbabwe and entrusted Pamire with payment.

He was in December 2008 convicted of fraud and sentenced to 30 months in jail.

However, the court suspended six months of the sentence on condition of good behaviour. A further 12 months were suspended on condition he paid Ziscosteel restitution, while the final 12 months were suspended on condition that he performed 420 hours of community service at United Bulawayo Hospitals.

Pamire was given up to January 31 2009 to pay restitution but failed to meet the deadline. He approached the court for extension of time to pay, which was then extended to February 26, 2009, and again failed to pay.

He was then locked in prison for a week awaiting the court to make an inquiry on the warrant of arrest he had been issued.

The court also ordered him to seek further extension of time to pay.

After a full inquiry, the court gave Pamire the benefit of the doubt upon the production of a letter from a doctor who examined and treated him and cancelled the warrant of arrest but could not extend the period for time to pay.

In 2020, Vincent Pamire had his bid for referral of his case to the Constitutional Court on the basis of inordinate delay in the hearing of his appeal thrown out by the High Court.

Pamire had not prosecuted his appeal against both conviction and sentence since the noting of appeal about 11 years ago.

The High Court ordered his release from prison in 2009 saying once an appeal against the sentence of restitution is noted, the decision of the trial court is suspended.^[5]

References