Lawyers get nod to alter defence outline

that a list of gazetted local fuel suppliers annexed to the indictment papers was irrelevant and wrongly attached.
Mangoma is being charged with criminal abuse of office after he allegedly authorised the purchase of fuel from an unapproved South African firm NOOA without going to tender.
Chief law officer Mr Chris Mutangadura admitted to the error after the High Court had allowed the State to produce the relevant document during re-examination of the first witness – Energy and Power Development secretary Mr Justin Mupamhanga.
“The Annexture of local suppliers of fuel to Zimbabwe was wrongly attached to the State papers.
“Automatically I was going to seek total deletion of Annexture A (local list),” said Mr Mutangadura.
Justice Chinembiri Bhunu granted the State’s application to introduce a new list of approved foreign fuel suppliers.
Mangoma’s lawyers were also allowed to amend the defence outline in line with the new information that had not been stated in the charge sheet and State outline.
Mr Mutangadura who, in the middle of the application in question, denied having intentions to substitute the local suppliers’ list with the foreign one, yesterday made a U-turn and informed the court that he was now seeking “total deletion” of the filed list.
That prompted Ms Beatrice Mtetwa of Mtetwa and Nyambirai to place it on record that the court had been misled in the earlier application.
“Last time the State maintained that it did not seek to substitute the list annexed to the State outline, but after the ruling it is now seeking to do the exact thing.
“I wish to place it on record that the court has been patently misled by the State knowing the actual purpose of the application,” said Ms Mtetwa.
The list that the State is now relying on is that of approved international companies while the one deleted was a gazetted list of local suppliers.
Ms Mtetwa was granted time to craft a new defence outline to substitute the one that had earlier been read in court when the trial opened in March.
After the court allowed the State to produce the document in re-examination of the first witness, Mr Mutangadura led evidence from Mr Mupamhanga on the new evidence.
Mr Mupamhanga maintained that NOOA was not part of the approved list of foreign suppliers.
He emphasised that the newly produced list was approved by the State Procurement Board and not gazetted.
Mr Mupamhanga also told the court that any other companies like NOOA that were not on the approved list, were allowed to apply to be added on the list of suppliers whenever need arose.
The trial continues today (Thursday) with Ms Mtetwa cross-examining Mr Mupamha-nga on the new evidence.