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Court Correspondent
Two Harare men, including a labour unionist, have been charged with attempting to defraud a private security company of thousands of dollars through a suspected membership subscription fees scam.
Jefias Musariri (67), who is employed as a site supervisor at Real Star Security Company, is jointly charged with Godfrey Togara (54), who is the general secretary at the Private Security Workers’ Union.
The duo appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Winfilder Tiyatara.
They were remanded out of custody to February 13 on free bail and were ordered not to interfere with witnesses and to reside at their given addresses.
Togara and Musariri were arrested last week after a report was made by Real Star Security, represented by Mr Cephas Ngorima.
Prosecutor Ms Lynnet Gwarisa said sometime in June 2024, Togara and Musariri hatched a plan to defraud the company and approached Sheilla Zigari, Joyce Nyamadzawo, Rona Masimbe and Lawrence Ruswa, who are security guards.
Musariri allegedly misrepresented to the quartet that he had been instructed to facilitate their membership of the Private Security Workers’ Union.
He allegedly received forms from Togara and distributed them to the guards.
Musariri allegedly used his position as a supervisor to pressurise his subordinates into signing up for the membership without fully explaining to them the purpose of the forms.
After the four guards signed and submitted the forms, Musariri allegedly handed them over to Togara.
Togara went on to claim membership subscription fees from the company at a monthly rate of US$4,20 per guard.
However, the company refused to pay the monthly subscriptions saying it was not aware that their employees had joined the union.
After the company ignored Togara’s demand for six months’ subscriptions, investigations led to his arrest.
It was discovered that Togara had recruited 51 guards into his union without their consent. It also emerged that some names submitted by Togara to Real Star Security Company were fictitious and had been created to steal money from the company
The potential prejudice was US$1 285,20.
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