Former Victoria Falls mayor jailed 36 months

Fairness Moyana in Hwange

FORMER Victoria Falls mayor, Somvelo Dhlamini has been sentenced to 36 months after being convicted of fraud.

Dhlamini had six months of his sentence conditionally suspended when he appeared before Hwange Regional magistrate, Mr Mark Dzira. He was facing a criminal charge emanating from a residential stand he fraudulently acquired in 2022.

According to the State led by Ms Memory Munsaka on an unknown date but during the period extending 1 August to 6 September 2022, Dhlamini unlawfully and intentionally misrepresented to the Victoria Falls City Council represented by Mr Ronnie Dube by making an application for a stand purporting to be someone else.

In the application which was made under the Wood Road Residential Scheme, Dhlamini purported to be Valentine Munyaradzi Maseko whom the City Council had in 2003 offered a residential stand number 1139 Aerodrome knowing that he was ineligible to benefit under the scheme.

This was also regardless of the fact that Maseko had made no such application. However, he was subsequently offered residential stand number 1717 Wood Road in Vic Falls in the process deceiving and prejudicing the authority of a potential US$66 462,75 revenue.

However, the former councillor was nabbed when investigations revealed that prior to his application in the scheme, he had approached Maseko and his father with documents in respect of stand number 1139 Aerodrome purporting to be an agreement of sale which he caused them to sign.

The State believes that it is against this background that Dhlamini then made an application to the Wood Road Residential scheme for a replacement stand for number 1139 Aerodrome whereupon a provisional allocation letter dated 17 May 2021 was issued by the Housing director. This subsequently led to him being allocated residential stand number 1771 Wood Road on 22 August 2022. However, Dhlamini through his lawyer, Mr Givemore Muvhiringi from Muvhiringi and Associates denied the charge arguing that he never made such misrepresentation to the City council.

“The accused was very clear from the onset that he was representing Valentine Munyaradzi Maseko and the officers on duty confirmed that he could represent him because they all knew about Maseko’s case which was being treated as ‘a special case’. It is false that accused had an intention to deceive the City council.”

He further argued that the vetting of Maseko was just a formality as he had already been offered stand 1771 Wood Road as a replacement for stand 1139 Aerodrome which could not be developed due to it being within army camp.