Prosper Dembedza
Herald Correspondent
Harare lawyer Joseph Mandizha of Mandizha and Company Legal Practitioners and his secretary Ranganayi Tigere have appeared in court on allegations of stealing US$1 333 342 entrusted to him for safekeeping in a trust account before buying himself a mine.
Mandizha and Tigere were facing theft of trust property and money laundering charges when they appeared before Harare Magistrate Ms Marehwanazvo Gofa who remanded them in custody to Monday next week for bail application.
The complainant is a trustee of Martmon Sibindi Trust which owns a piece of land Lot 1 of Lot 14 of Tynwald measuring 16.1883 hectares held under deed of transfer number 5356/88.
It is the State’s case that sometime in 2017, the complainant decided to subdivide the land into residential stands and they engaged Mandizha and Company Legal Practitioners to manage the financial aspect of the project.
According to the terms of engagement Mandizha through his law firm was to draw up a draft template(s) agreement of sale, attending to prospective buyers as part of their due diligence enquiries and account to the trust on project inflows and outflows.
The court heard that Mandizha who is a majority shareholder in Heaven on Earth Real Estate recommended the complainant to engage his real estate company to market the stands to prospective buyers.
The arrangement was that Heaven on Earth would market the stands for the trust and the accused through his law firm would receive payments on behalf of the trust and payments for the stands were strictly be made in cash to the law firm and submitted to the trust.
It is alleged that after receiving payments from buyers 5 percent of the amount received was supposed to be remitted to the real estate company as their commission for the work, 47,5 percent of the total amount received was supposed to be remitted to the real estate company as development cost for the stands done by Divine Homes (Pvt) Limited on behalf of the trust. Then remaining 47,5 percent was supposed to be remitted to the trust through Mr Peter Makoni.
The State alleges that during the execution of the mandate and from period extending from January 2023 to date the accused person acting in connivance with his secretary received some money from clients and converted part of it to their personal use which was supposed to be handed over to Martmon Sibindi Trust.
To cover up the offence Mandizha instructed Tigere to use two different receipt books and she would write a different amount in the dummy receipt book which is different from the original receipt book.
The offence came to light in March 2026 when the complainant discovered some financial irregularities on the cash inflows and outflows.
This then prompted the Trust to do an audit through MNK Audit firm where it was discovered that the accused persons had converted a total of US$1 333 342 to their personal use.
In order to disguise the illicit source of funds, Mandizha allegedly went on to buy a mine in Acturas in Mashonaland East Province using the proceeds of the crime.
The total value stolen is US$1 333 342 and nothing was recovered.
