Chronicle Editor
Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Court Reporter
ONE of the two BancABC tellers in Bulawayo who were arrested last year for defrauding their employer of more than $50 000, was yesterday ordered to restitute the money or risk being jailed.
Hloniphani Ngwenya (34) of Emganwini suburb was yesterday convicted of theft by Bulawayo magistrate Ms Sithembiso Ncube. He was sentenced to five years of which one year was suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour.
Two years were further suspended on condition Ngwenya restitutes $55 000 and R10 540 on or before December 24 this year. The remaining two years were suspended on condition that Ngwenya performs 630 hours of community service starting Monday.
Ngwenya’s accomplice, Progress Moyo (27), was last year convicted on his own plea of guilty to theft by Bulawayo magistrate Mr Tinashe Tashaya.
Moyo was handed a non-custodial sentence after he restituted $5 560 which had gone missing.
Prosecuting, Ms Tafadzwa Mutsambiwa said on October 17 last year, Ngwenya was allocated the day’s float of $80 000 from the vault by his supervisor, Mr Tigere Maswera.
Ngwenya also received R10 540 as deposits from clients. The operations team discovered that Ngwenya had made false entries in the system after carrying out an end-of-day check on all tellers on transactions on the computer systems as well as physical cash held by tellers.
“During the process, Mr Maswera discovered that Ngwenya made false entries in the system to facilitate balancing. Upon verification, Mr Maswera discovered that Ngwenya was out of balance,” said Ms Mutsambiwa
He failed to account for $55 000 and R10 540, leading bank managers to file a police report.
In his defence, Ngwenya denied receiving some of the money.
A report was made to the police and investigations led to the arrest of Ngwenya and nothing has been recovered. — @mashnets
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