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Innocent Ruwende, Senior Reporter
HARARE businessman-cum-musician Energy Mutodi, who had been languishing in a Mutare remand prison for the past two weeks, has finally been granted US$2 000 bail.The flamboyant singer is accused of swindling desperate home seekers in Mutare of close to US$2 million in a housing scandal.
He is facing similar charges in Harare involving more than US$6 million.
As part of his bail conditions Mutodi, who is being represented by Mr Farai Nyamayaro, was today ordered to surrender his travel documents and to report once a week at Borrowdale Police Station.
He was also ordered not to interfere with State witnesses and investigations.
High Court Judge Justice Hlekani Mwayera presided over the matter yesterday.
Allegations against Mutodi arose after he hatched a plan to defraud unsuspecting civil servants and formed National Housing Development Trust in Mutare.
He allegedly lured civil servants into paying NHDT monthly payments to buy land in Mutare’s Gimboki South housing project to peg and service it.
He allegedly promised to allocate residential stands to each of them.
A total of 1 562 home seekers joined Mutodi’s NHDT and he started receiving varying amounts of cash deducted from the complainants’ salaries through a Salary Service Bureau stop order facility and converted the money to his own use.
The businessman-cum-musician is a signatory to funds of the NHDT and is the one who personally benefited from the cash that the complainants lost through SSB deductions, it is alleged.
The civil servants’ contributions amounted to US$1 699 620.
Online Reporter