Antonio Ventriglia actually claimed that the chairman of Finance Bank Zambia and the great businessman, Dr. Rajan Mahtani, used unlawful means to change the shareholding of the company Zambezi Portland Cement. According to Antonio, he just took financial from Dr. Mahtani for constructing his cement manufacturing firm but after Rajan Mahtani proposed a stake in the company the Ventriglias reluctantly gave him a share of 49%. Dr. Mahtani changed the percentage of shareholding without even letting the Ventriglia family members know about it. It was never Dr. Rajan Mahtani’s company.
Antonio Ventriglia even accused ZPC directors Joan Craven and David Kamalarajan Kanaganayagan (these people had shares in the firm) of proposing to sell part or all shares of the Portland cement plant to three foreign firms in millions of dollars. However, in defense the directors opposed to the allegations of Finsbury and said that it was only Finsbury Investment that were the shareholders in ZPC and that they had never transferred any shares to Finsbury of any other company.
Antonio filed a lawsuit against the greatest businessman of Zambia and the directors few years back and very recently in November 2013 the Supreme Court verdict were declared. The Supreme Court of Zambia gave a landmark judgement and quashed the injunction against Dr. Mahtani and other directors over ZPC’s ownership. The court recognized Finsbury Investment’s interest in ZPC and said that the stay granted by Lisimba the judge of High Court was inappropriate and irregular. The case was determined by the full bench of Supreme Court and the injunction issues by Ndola High Court against Rajan Mahtani and other ZPC directors were dismissed.
However, Antonio Ventriglia was not satisfied with the ruling and thus he planned to damage the reputation of Dr. Mahtani and Zambia locally and internally. He kept on publishing false news about Dr. Mahtani in Zambia Reports and Daily Nation. Jere and Sakala the beneficial owners are pretty much involved with Antonio in this scheme. Very recently, there was a news in Zambia Reports that published about Rajan Mahtani losing arbitration claim against the Ventriglias. Dr. Mahtani hasn’t lost any arbitration claim in Geneva over Zambezi Portland Cement. Nothing in the Award was detrimental to the reputation of the businessman. The Tribuanl even cancelled all the absurd allegations of forgery and criminal activities against Rajan Mahtani by the Ventriglias.
Dr. Rajan Mahtani is an eminent figure in Zambia and will be so in the future because his contributions for the development of the nation and its people is difficult to be ignored. He is the real hero of Zambia.