adminMarvelous Moyo Gwanda Correspondent
STATE Security Minister Kembo Mohadi has told a court that his company was liquidated without his knowledge. He said this on Thursday while testifying in a matter in which a Bulawayo liquidator Barbra Lunga, 58, is alleged to have connived with a Beitbridge Town Council employee to falsify legal documents resulting in the Minister and his business partner Josias John Moyo losing property worth $1,6 million.
The company in which Minister Mohadi was a director, Nerry Investments was put under provisional liquidation in July 2012 at the height of a business wrangle involving him and one of the shareholders, Reginald Macgillivary Dawson.
Lunga and Simon Muleya, the Beitbridge Rural District Administrator are facing fraud charges while the liquidator is facing an additional charge of theft. The pair pleaded not guilty to all the charges before regional magistrate Joseph Mabeza.
Testifying, Minister Mohadi said it was his first time to see Lunga while Muleya was his nephew. The Minister said he held a 25 percent stake in the company when it was liquidated.
He said Nerry Investments was liquidated without his knowledge yet he should have been advised about it as one of the directors.
“Dawson single-handedly liquidated Nerry Investments and we queried why that had been done without the knowledge of other directors. All this was done behind the backs of two directors that is me and Moyo. I should have known that she was liquidating my company, directors should have been advised,” said the Minister.
He said soon after Nerry Investments was put under provisional liquidation, Lunga went to Beitbridge Town Council and allegedly connived with Muleya to fraudulently transfer ownership of the company’s property into Red Queen Trading belonging to Dawson.
He said when Nerry Investments was liquidated, there was $42,128 in the company’s CBZ account which the bank had said was transferred to Lunga’s personal account. “I didn’t have any creditors, I didn’t owe anybody. It’s a fact that the money isn’t there. The money was taken by the liquidator and the bank has it on record that it was transferred to her account,” said the Minister. He said he wanted Lunga to account for the money.
Lunga and Muleya’s lawyers, Richard Majwabu and Professor Welshman Ncube produced receipts to show how Lunga used the money but Minister Mohadi said he could not accept the receipts as long as they were not authenticated by the Master of High Court.
“I’m not saying the receipts aren’t genuine. I would have accepted them if they had been authenticated by the Master of High Court,” said Minister Mohadi. The lawyers said some of the company funds were deposited into the bank account of the Minister’s wife, Tambudzani. The minister said he would investigate that.
Inspector Fiselani Ndlovu from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Serious Fraud Squad in Harare who was part of the investigating team also told the court that Muleya participated in fraudulently changing the lease agreement from Nerry Investments to Red Queen.
She said when they asked Lunga how she used the $42,128 she said it was used to liquidate Nerry Investments but there was no proof of that. Inspector Ndlovu will continue giving her evidence on November 26. Blessing Gundani represented the State.
Online Reporter