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Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
FIVE Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) executives who were last year arrested for criminal abuse of office, have been found not guilty.
Messrs Precious Murove (director administration and human resources), Simon Taranhike (finance director), Shadreck Matengabadza (finance manager), Stephen Matute (accountant) and Givemore Tendai Kufa (regional engineer) were charged with criminal abuse of office.
They were accused of fraudulently engaging third party companies to source foreign currency on the informal market on behalf of Zinara. The prosecution accused the executives of transferring $2 940 558 into the bank accounts of Access Finance Private Limited, Grayriver Private Limited and Caudless Trading, without authority of the Zinara board of directors.
Defence lawyer Ms Rekai Maphosa of Maphosa & Ndomene Legal Practitioners convinced the court that her clients were innocent. High Court judge, Justice Amy Tsanga on April 24 this year cleared the five of any wrongdoing after a full trial.
“All five accused persons are found not guilty of abuse of public office in terms of Section 174 of the Criminal Code and are acquitted,” ruled Justice Tsanga.
The court found that the five’s actions had the blessings of their bosses.
“We are in no doubt that they acted with the full knowledge of their CEO Mrs Nancy Masiiwa, whose responsibility it was to bring the issue to the full board. We were satisfied that the finance director did report to the CEO both in her capacity as CEO of Zinara and her concomitant position in Ifralink about the payments that were made which she knew about…It was a simple lie that she was not aware of what was happening,” she said.
The judge said it was unfair for the State to prosecute juniors when the superiors were aware of the transactions.
More to follow…
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