Showdown Looms As Master of High Court Launches Chivayo’s Million Dollar Estate Liquidation
By Agencies
The Master of the High Court in Zimbabwe has officially issued Letters of Administration for the estate of late businessman Wicknell Chivhayo, launching a complex multi-million-dollar liquidation under strict legal scrutiny and a firm statutory deadline.
Under reference number 105417/26, signed in Harare on November 9, 2026, the Master formally designated Esther Chivhayo and Sonja Louise Madzikanda as Co-Executrixes Datives. The directive grants both women full legal authority to marshal, manage, and distribute the vast fortune left behind following Chivhayo’s fatal September 30 helicopter crash in Marondera, which also claimed the life of his wife, Lucy Muteke.
Under Zimbabwean law, the co-executrixes face an unyielding six-month statutory deadline to submit a complete administration and liquidation account to the High Court. Failure to comply within the prescribed timeframe without a valid legal excuse will result in the immediate forfeiture of their executor fees alongside potential High Court summonses.
The administration process took an immediate and dramatic turn when Esther Chivhayo retained senior legal practitioner Advocate Caleb Mucheche, of Caleb Mucheche and Partners Law Chambers, to guide her through the liquidation. The appointment has drawn intense public, regulatory, and professional scrutiny due to Advocate Mucheche’s ongoing role as executor dative in the estate of late national hero Dr. Edward Munatsireyi Pswarayi, who died in June 2014.
More than ten years after his initial appointment under the Administration of Estates Act [Chapter 6:01], the liquidation of Dr. Pswarayi’s extensive commercial and residential realty across Harare and Beatrice remains unexecuted. The decade-long gridlock recently erupted into public controversy after video footage surfaced showing Dr. Pswarayi’s elderly widow living in severe financial destitution while estate assets remain locked in court battles.
Although formal records indicate that Mucheche’s firm has instituted statutory measures—including legal proceedings against parties accused of creating shell entities to intercept estate rentals—legal experts highlight substantial regulatory risks. High Court analysts emphasize that executors hold a strict fiduciary duty under Chapter 6:01 to expedite estate liquidations and protect surviving dependents. Commercial law scholars further warn that taking on a massive new estate while embedded in a decade-long legal battle creates operational bottlenecks, administrative capacity risks, and heightened supervisory oversight from the Law Society of Zimbabwe.
Compounding the complexity, Chivhayo’s commercial empire is already entangled in a separate $25 million matrimonial dispute involving co-executrix Sonja Madzikanda, as well as an active aviation crash investigation in Marondera.
Financial auditors warn that auditing Chivhayo’s extensive real estate holdings, energy procurement contracts, and cross-border liquid accounts leaves no room for procedural delay. Any misstep during the asset inventory phase risks triggering court caveats from corporate creditors and commercial banks, threatening to freeze operations across subsidiary companies as the statutory six-month clock ticks down.
