daniel chigunwe
Zvikomborero Parafini
AN employee of the Department of State Lands, who spent the weekend in remand prison, was yesterday granted bail.
Everisto Nyamadzawo initially appeared in court on Saturday and was remanded in custody pending bail considerations.
He was released on US$300 bail.
The State alleged that in 2018, the agent, who was in the business of buying and selling stands, approached one Muwondori, an official from the Ministry of Lands, enquiring on how she could acquire stands for resale.
Muwondori then introduced the agent to Nyamadzawo.
It is alleged Nyamadzawo indicated that he was in a position to facilitate and provide residential stands which the agent could sell on his behalf.
He told her that he had residential stands in Chiredzi, which were available for sale.
The State alleged that Nyamadzawo and his accomplice, Simbarashe Gurira, who is still at large, produced a copy of a lease agreement for the stands to make the agent believe that they were the ones who were responsible for allocating the stands.
Gurira allegedly then supplied the informant with a list of 18 stands numbers on WhatsApp.
Equipped with the stands numbers, the agent allegedly proceeded to Chiredzi Town Council to verify the status of the stands.
Chiredzi Town Council officials told the agent that the stands were commonage stands and they were vacant.
The Council officials showed the informant the location of the stands in question.
The agent then gave feedback on the status of the stands to Gurira after being informed that the stands belonged to the Ministry of Local Government.
She started to look for potential buyers for those stands.
She supplied details of customers to Gurira, together with the money collected, for the purchase of the stands.
All of the stands were entered into the council database.
Each high density stand was pegged at a value of US$3500 and a low density stand was being sold for US$7000.
The agent sold 14 high density stands and four low density residential stands.A total of about US$77 000 was realised from the sale of the residential stands and the money was paid to Nyamadzawo.
The offence came to light after a wrangle between Solomon Muchebve, who bought one of the stands, and another person, who claimed to have bought the same stand directly from the Ministry of Local Government.
Nyamadzawo was arrested.
Online Reporter