HARARE - Eulogies are supposed to take a man’s secrets into the ground. On Thursday, 8 October, Joachim Chivayo, the younger brother known as G6, used his to read out part of the ledger.

Speaking at the funeral of Wicknell Chivayo, who died with his wife Lucy in a helicopter crash on 30 September, G6 began in the register of grief. “I stand before you not as a businessman, nor as G6, but as a little brother, Joachim Chivayo,” he said, according to TV47. “And today, my brother, my teacher, our captain, has left us.”

Then he told a story about money.

A family investment

In 2015, G6 said, Wicknell was preparing the paperwork for the Gwanda solar project, the 100-megawatt plant his company Intratrek had been awarded by the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC). “I am expecting a payment of 5 million USD. Saka whatever money that you choose to invest when the deal comes through I will give you 1 million,” G6 quoted him as saying, as reported by The Observer. (“Saka” is Shona for “so”.)

“So I sold most of my disposable vehicles and I managed to raise 220,000 USD,” G6 said.

Less than two months later, he said, Wicknell woke him with news that he had just been paid US$5 million. G6 was 24. “I was touching the sky. Imagine thinking I’m now a millionaire at 24 years,” he said.

The warm-up

The million did not arrive. Facebook did. “He stopped answering my phone calls, I only saw his Facebook post that he had bought shoes worth US$90,000,” he said. “And he said it’s just a warmup on his timeline. That was the caption.”

The shoes, he said, were bought in Dubai: “kutoenda ku Dubai buying shoes worth 90,000 USD, and calling it a warm up, a stretching exercise” (translated: “even going to Dubai, buying shoes worth 90,000 USD…”). “2 days later, anga ave ku America, shopping clothes as always left, right and center,” he said (translated: “two days later, he was already in America…”).

After nearly two weeks, Wicknell came home and G6 confronted him. “That million that I promised you, ah I can’t give it to you anymore. mari yakapera,” G6 recalled him saying (“mari yakapera” translates as “the money is finished”).

Instead, G6 said, Wicknell offered him a BMW X6, which he valued at US$400,000. “Mathematics was my strongest subject and this by all means was not an even exchange,” G6 said. “I did not know whether to laugh or cry.” Bulawayo24 reported that he accepted the car. Later, according to Tuko, he thanked his brother “for the BMW”.

Claims, not findings

These are G6’s recollections about a man who can no longer answer them. As Bulawayo24 noted, his account sets out events as he remembers them rather than proving where the money for the shoes came from. Pindula reported that Chivayo had denied squandering the Gwanda money in court, and he and Intratrek were acquitted in criminal proceedings over the contract after the court found the prosecution had been unreasonably delayed. As of 10 October, no response to the speech from Intratrek or the family had been reported.

The contract was originally worth about US$172 million, and according to Bulawayo24, ZPC has said about US$5.7 million, including VAT, was advanced to Intratrek for preliminary work. More than a decade later, the plant has produced no electricity. In September 2026, weeks before Chivayo died, ZPC told Intratrek to resume work within 24 months at a revised price of about US$132 million.

The mourners outside the tent

Not everyone heard a tribute. Political analyst Phillan Zamchiya wrote on Facebook that G6 had “inadvertently linked the US$5 million received for the Gwanda solar project to Wicknell’s extravagant spending” and argued that the sources of wealth in the estate should be investigated before it is distributed. Fadzayi Mahere, a lawyer who often clashed with Chivayo online, asked in Shona what his defenders would do “now that his own brother says the money went on shoes and holidays in places like Dubai” (Pindula’s translation).

G6 framed the story as a lesson from a mentor, and appealed to anyone with unfinished business with Wicknell to settle it without going to court. “That would be necessary, and I know personally that this is what my brother would have wanted,” he said, as quoted by Tuko.

The cartoon

In the cartoon above, a hand yanks a robe labelled “AURA” off a man left standing in Gucci briefs beside a Rolls-Royce. Aura, as the young use the word, is the glow of the untouchable. In the end it was not a regulator or a court that tugged at the robe. It was a younger brother with a microphone and an excellent memory for numbers.