Chronicle Editor
Fungai Lupande Court Reporter
THREE Caritas Zimbabwe officials responsible for handling Roman Catholic donor funds, who are accused of squandering over $500 000 meant for humanitarian aid, have been removed from remand.
A witness, an auditor from BCA, Jonah Muzambi, failed to come to court to testify. However, Caritas Zimbabwe national director Cornelius Hamadziripi (49), who is jointly charged with finance administrator Dadirayi Nyamashuka (34) and programmes co-ordinator Wonder Mufunda (40) insisted that Mr Muzambi should come and testify because he conducted the audit.
Prosecutor Mr Norman Tsarwe told the court that Muzambi had left BCA and it was difficult to subpoena him.
The three were appearing before Harare magistrate Mr Noel Mupeiwa facing 189 counts of fraud, forgery and theft of trust property. Mr Mupeiwa removed them from remand to allow Mr Tsarwe to put his house in order.
The complainant was Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ZCBC) represented by its secretary-general, Fr Fradreck Chiromba.
The court heard that ZCBC is the administrator of all Catholic departments, including Caritas Zimbabwe whose mandate is to provide humanitarian aid, execute emergency responses and relief work throughout Zimbabwe.
Mr Tsarwe alleged that in 2013, Caritas Zimbabwe sought funds to assist victims of politically motivated violence during the 2013 harmonised elections. Their British office released $30 400, but there were no incidents warranting use of the funds.
The emergency response committee then asked for the money back, but Hamadziripi only managed to transfer $4 999,20.
He allegedly sent a financial report justifying the balance and the report was signed by Nyamashuka and Mufunda.
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) then requested a forensic audit.
It was established that the three abused $25 000.
To cover stheir tracks, they misrepresented that $12 800 had been distributed to ZCBC’s eight dioceses countrywide by allegedly creating fictitious disbursement sheets, but the dioceses denied receiving the funds.
The forensic audit revealed that the three allegedly started abusing donor funds in 2009. They allegedly awarded themselves advance salaries amounting to $174 004,63 which they wrote off at the end of each financial year.
The court heard that between January 4, 2012 and January 31, 2014 on 60 different occasions, the three withdrew $208 586 from Caritas Zimbabwe’s three Stanbic Back accounts.
They purported that the money was for the petty cash account, but converted it to their personal use.
The court also heard that in 2009 the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) granted Caritas Zimbabwe $30 266 for cholera prevention and treatment.
The three received another grant of $19 836,98 from the Refugee Action and $19 777,63 was never accounted for.
The three allegedly also took $67 776,24 meant for different humanitarian programmes.
Total prejudice was $525 410, 05 and nothing was recovered.
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