Madam Boss in donor funds abuse storm, fails to pay cast in new film

Harare- DAGGERS are drawn against actress and socialite Madam Boss (real name Tyra Chikocho) who is alleged to have abused donor funds and neglecting to pay the cast and crew members of her new film titled ‘Becoming Madam Boss’, Express Mail Zim can exclusively reveal.

The popular socialite and queen of the razzmatazz was working with a production house called Nelned Pictures.

The star studded cast include big names like award winning Caroline Mashingaidze, Nash Mphepo, Conrad Mwanawashe,Eddie Sandifolo and Zolile Makeleni among others.

These artists do not come cheap but Madame Boss allegedly managed to secure huge funding and committed to pay them.

She is however struggling to meet contractual obligations after allegedly squandering part of the funds meant for production .

“She (Madam Boss) got a lot of funding from external sponsors but she blew it on her lavish lifestyle “She used her brand to mobilise funds from sponsors and it was enough to foot the whole production budget but now we had to stop production.

“What we want is the money we worked for.

“Remember art is business and we have families to feed.

“She always come up with excuses and relay all quiries to her husband Ngoni ,” lamented one of the victims who spoke on condition of anonymity .

Investigations by Express Mail Zim established that close to US$100 000 was paid and Madam Boss was obligated to pocket 20 percent of all funds.
Among the funders was Nyaradzo Funeral which pledged US$40 000 but coughed out half of the amount to date,TN Holdings paid US$8 000 and one Zeb Tsikira paid US$20 000 in February this year.

In a leaked Whats App group chat, Madam Boss acknowledged debt but absolved herself from abusing funds and cited that some companies that had pledged were yet to pay up.

“Morning beautiful people
“I would like to thank you so much for your commitment in making my long life dream come true.

“I don’t underestimate your commitment to this project at all, I know everyone sacrificed a lot of their time to making this movie- I really wish all that’s happening was not happening , my wish was for everyone to have been paid in full upon signing the contract but things have been so hard ,company that had promised to pay us have not honored to their promises but all hope is not lost as we are expecting new partners to come on board including those that we already in partnership with.
“I ask you all to be a little patient as I and my whole team are running around everyday so we can make things right by you- again I’m sorry for all the inconveniences,” she wrote.

Express Mail Zim also gleaned a communique authored by project manager Sydney Taivaishe apologising for the salaries crisis.
“On behalf of Nelned Pictures the production company behind the Becoming Madam Boss film project, I’m writing to you to apologize officially for the late payments for your role in Becoming Madam Boss Movie,” read part of the letter. It further reads ”

“This is due to the delay in disbursements of funding from our key sponsors and partners of the project. We have been forced to halt production because of the above circumstances and we will only resume once the funds become available. Becoming Madam Boss Movie is a Sponsor/Partnership based project and therefore our financial commitment heavily relies on third party funding.

“We are working to the best of our ability to speed up the process of dealing with this, and everyone shall receive their payments as soon as we receive the funding from our sponsors and partners. We’re hoping the money situation can be settled within the month of July. I will keep everyone up to date on any developments.

Many thanks for your understanding.”

The cancer of abuse of donor funds has dogged the local film industry for a long time resulting in a massive donor fatigue.

Population Services International had to cut funding of the country’s first soapie Studio 263 following suspicion that the late Godwin Mawuru was misappropriating funds. This has ‘killed’ the local film industry and resultantly, actors die paupers.
Early producers like John Riber were transparent hence we witnessed successful yesteryear movies like Neria, Hit,Yellow Card among others .