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Senior Court Reporter
A new trial date for former Cabinet Minister Prisca Mupfumira and ex-Ministry of Public Service and Social Welfare Permanent Secretary Ngoni Masoka, on criminal abuse of office as public officers and concealing a transaction from a principal, has been set for March 27.
The trial was halted in 2021 following the elevation of the then Chief Magistrate, Mr Munamato Mutevedzi, to the position of a judge of the High Court.
The matter was then pronounced a de novo, prompting the matter to be re-started.
Mupfumira and Masoka, through their lawyers, notified the State when they appeared before magistrate Mrs Stanford Mambanje that they will apply for a refusal of further remand if the trial fails to start on March 27.
Allegations against the two are that sometime between March and July 2015, Mupfumira, knowing that she was not a procurement officer, used her influence as a minister to verbally instruct Masoka to initiate procurement procedures of obtaining a loan from National Social Security Authority (NSSA) for the purchase of a ministerial vehicle.
It is alleged that Mupfumira knew that NSSA had no provisions to issue such loans.
Masoka is alleged to have written to NSSA requesting US$90 000 without Treasury approval and the funds were transferred to the ministry.
Mupfumira is alleged to have instructed Memory Mukondomi, the finance director in the ministry, to purchase a Toyota Land Cruiser VX — L200 as a ministerial vehicle, which is not part of her conditions of service.
The State had it that Mupfumira was entitled to a Mercedes Benz E300.
The vehicle was allegedly purchased at the instruction of Mupfumira and registered with CMED as a condition of service vehicle.
The Ministry, through Masoka, issued a duty free certificate for the vehicle.
It is the State’s case that Mupfumira and Masoka knew that the minister was entitled to a Mercedes Benz and that in March 2015 she had been issued with a Range Rover as part of her conditions of service.
The State also alleges that Mupfumira was not entitled to the Toyota Land Cruiser.
It is also further alleged that Mupfumira and Masoka failed to reveal the US$90 000 loan transaction to their principal, the Office of President and Cabinet for the purchase of the Toyota Land Cruiser, as a vehicle for condition of service for the minister.
Mupfumira also stands accused of instructing the finance director to facilitate the payment of air tickets for her aides to attend her daughter’s wedding in South Africa, during which Masoka allegedly unlawfully approved the payment.
It is also alleged that they facilitated the payment of accommodation fees and transport which prejudiced the Ministry of US$10 215 and R113 539.
Mr Kennedy Madekutsikwa appeared for the State.
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