Dr. Rajan Lekhraj Mahtani Is Majority Shareholder Of Zambezi Portland Cement, Confirms Court

After more than a decade of running across courts and waiting patiently, Dr. Rajan Mahtani finally served justice by the Court of Appeal. This decision from Court of Appeal came around nine months after the Lusaka High Court gave the judgement against Dr. Rajan Mahtani’s appeal. The case was originally registered at the Lusaka High Court and after ten years of case proceedings, justice Nkonde shared his final decision. According to this decision, Ventriglias were the only shareholders of Zambezi Portland Cement. However, this decision was misdirected as it was given without any evidence or proof.

Dr. Rajan Mahtani then approached the higher Court of Appeal which gave its final decision on 31^st January 2019. According to this decision, Dr. Rajan Mahtani owned Finsbury Investments is the majority shareholder with 58 percent shares and Ventriglia owned Ital Terrazzo Limited is the minority shareholder with 42 percent shares. As such, the ownership of the Zambezi Portland Cement directly goes to Dr. Rajan Mahtani. Furthermore, the judge at the Court of Appeal also said that the judge below him was wrong in declaring Ventriglias as only shareholders without any proof or evidence. The judgement given by Justice Mwinde at the Court of Appeal aligns with the original Shareholders Agreement established in the year 2007.

The judge at the Court of Appeal also discarded all allegations of forgery. It was declared that the process of mechanically placing signatures for business transactions was common practice across Zambezi Portland Cement. It was also found that important member of the Ventriglia family, Claudio Ventriglia, engaged in similar practice. As such, all allegations were discarded by the justice.

Furthermore, the Court of Appeal stated that all parties are required to proceed with share selling and regularization process which started during December 2006. This regularization process must be aligned with the original Shareholders Agreement established during 2007 and should be completed within three months from the judgement date.