Commercial stand seeker duped $115k

Chido Nyamuyaruka Court Correspondent

Two Chitungwiza residents allegedly defrauded a company in the town of earth-moving equipment worth US$115 000 by offering to swop it with 20ha of land which they did not own.

Taurai Nkulumo Chivhanga and Elisha Banda were remanded in custody by Harare magistrate Mrs Yeukai Dzuda to September 19, 2022 pending finalisation of investigations.

Their arrest follows their alleged attempt to defraud Load Investments operating in the Tilco Industrial Area Chitungwiza. The company owns earth moving and road construction equipment which includes tippers and trucks.

It is in the States case that Chivhanga and Banda first identified 14ha of council land behind Chitungwiza industrial area. In May 2020 the two went to Load Investments and allegedly lied that they were offered a contract by senior Government officials to supply river sand and quarry stones for construction at National Heroes Acre and needed to buy a load tipper trailer and a truck horse for this project.

On the strength of the alleged lies a director of Load Investments agreed to sell the load tipper trailer AER 0389 for US$65 000 and an Iveco truck horse AEG 6702 for US$ 35 000.

Initially Chivhanga and Banda offered a swop for 5ha of commercial land in Chitungwiza Industrial area but the company director said this was not enough to cover the cost of the two vehicles. So Chivhanga and Banda pushed up the offer to 20ha but wanted in addition a Nissan HardBody NP300 valued at US$15 000 to smoothen the deal.

The agreement was later reduced into writing in the form of an agreement of sale between Bernard Chivhanga Family Land Developers represented by Taurai Nkulumo Chivhanga as the seller and Load Investments as the purchaser which was signed on May 19 2020.

After acquiring the land, the company did not develop it because of Covid-19. But in April this year someone came to the property and announced they had bought a portion from Chitungwiza Town Council and produced the offer letter.

The director went down to the town council and found the land indeed belonged to the council so he made a police report leading to the arrest of Chivhanga and Banda on Monday.