#MondayBlues: The Rise, Fall And Resurrection of Wazara

One of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe’s founding fathers Mr Zachary Wazara recently bounced back as the new  Econet Media Director.

He has been in the telecommunications sector for a long time now both as a fiery Econet  executive before he was nationally headlined as a game changer when he pushed VoIP to the mainstream Zimbabwe under the defunct Brodacom.

Wazara served as an Executive Director of Econet Wireless International and served as Executive Director of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd. He was part of Econet Wireless Management Team that was assigned to set up Econet Wireless Nigeria, where he served as Chief Executive Officer and was responsible for the day-to-day running of business.

He recently resurrected During a Kwese Event recently, where Wazara was unveiled as the director of Econet Media.Wazara however has a long tale to tale in business owing to the up and down journey which is punctuated with successes, failures and regrets and somewhat unholy alliances which cost him a fortune.

An accomplished marketing practitioner, Mr. Wazara joined Econet Wireless in December 1996 as General Manager for Sales and Marketing. He became heavily involved in all the business planning activities relating to the setting up of Econet Wireless International’s operations, both in Zimbabwe and Botswana and now Nigeria.

He was assigned in 1998 to go and set up Mascom Wireless, in which Econet Wireless is part of a consortium that runs that country’s largest mobile network. In Botswana, Wasara was appointed the chief operating officer.He also served as Director of Lesotho Telecommunications Corp. He served as Director of Econet Wireless Holdings Ltd. until May 2009.

Wasara participated in the legal battles that took place and I was doing more business development work.

In 1999 he became the Econet marketing director, and rose to become the Econet Wireless Zimbabwe COO in October 1999 until July 2000 when he was appointed managing director of Econet Zimbabwe. Two years later, he helped set up Econet Nigeria and was appointed Econet Nigeria chief executive, a position he held for three years.

He left in 2003 and went to South Africa where he was appointed the Econet Wireless Group’s chief operating officer.

After having served 11 years in the telecommunications sector, Wazara started his own company SpiritAge Group, a technology company which offered services in both the tech sector and the services sector.

In a stint of less than five yearss, things went sour at SpiritAge and business collapsed at the blink of an eye. According to reports, mismanagement which includes awarding a bloated management team hefty salries and pecks was the biggest contributor to the downfall of the company.

After folding hands around 2012, Wazara briefly went into hibernation only to emerge around 2014 during the Afrasia/ SpiritAge face off whereby Wazara was suing the financial institution a whooping $76 million for allegedly breaching its obligations in Valley Technologies (Private) Limited, a liquidated telecoms company which was jointly owned by the businessman and the financial institution.

In 2015, Wazara through his companies Suremed and Spirit age also approached the courts seeking a $400 000 compensation from collapsed financial institution Royal Bank Limited. Basically during this time, we would say Wazara had crafted a plan to earn a living through lawsuits and compensations claims as non of his businesses were offering any decent survival options.