Online Reporter
Yeukai Karengezeka-Chisepo
Court Correspondent
A City of Harare employee from the ICT department has appeared in court on allegations of manipulating council’s financial system and embezzling US$20 627 from clients’ accounts.
The accused, David Madzivanyika, who is currently on suspension, was granted bail after appearing before Harare Provincial Magistrate Mr Artwell Sanyatwe over the weekend.
The complainant in the case is the Harare City Council, represented by Mostard Mashiringo (51), a Senior Systems Analyst with the council.
According to the prosecution, led by Ms Polite Chikiwa, the matter came to light in late November 2025 when the Harare City Council Revenue Division received complaints from clients disputing their account balances.
Following these complaints, the Acting Head of Information and Communication Technology, William Mugobogobo, instructed the complainant to investigate.
During investigation, discrepancies were discovered between amounts recorded in the sub-ledgers and the main ledgers.
Council further consulted C.C.G., the South African-based vendor and provider of the Sage Evolution Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
The C.C.G. confirmed evidence of manipulation in the affected accounts and recommended creating a programme to monitor superuser activities in the database, as no such monitoring system previously existed.
Subsequent monitoring by the Information Communication Division revealed that the superuser account “sa2,” assigned to Madzivanyika, was responsible for unauthorised changes to account balances, as recorded in the system’s audit trail.
The matter was escalated to the council’s Audit Division, which informed the Audit Committee and recommended Madzivanyika”s suspension.
Following the findings, the case was reported to the police. The total amount stolen is valued at US$20 627, and no recoveries have been made to date.
