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Abel Zhakata
Senior Reporter
THE Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts has directed Mutare City Council to exhaust all avenues, including engaging Interpol, to recover the US$330 000 that the local authority was swindled by a briefcase company in a botched water pipes deal more than a decade ago.
The committee was touring the city early this week to check on whether the municipality is complying with the Auditor General’s report.
“You can’t tell us that such a huge amount of money just vanished. This company, Shitazburg, has directors. Where are these people? Do they have properties? Have you engaged the police, even Interpol?
“We are failing to understand why you haven’t recovered anything even after that company was convicted by the courts,” said the committee chairperson and Chegutu West legislator, Honourable Dexter Nduna.
Acting Mutare Chamber Secretary, Mr Takudzwa Nyamande told the committee that Council hired private investigators to track the company, all to no avail.
“It was a briefcase company. We engaged private investigators who came up with nothing. We have heard that the said directors have since skipped the country. The company has no known properties in this country,” he said.
Hon Nduna asked the local authority to furnish the committee with more details of the flawed deal for onward submission to Parliament.
“We want to take this issue to Parliament so that we recover the ratepayers’ money. People cannot just disappear with public funds. They can be found and Parliament will help you achieve that,” he said.
The US$330 000 theft which was fronted by Anderson Mwashita is largely blamed for the prolonged delay in completing the Dangamvura Water Pipeline.
After the funds disappeared with no deliveries made, Council had to look for more funding and re-tender the whole project.
The case, which is now known as the Shitazburg saga in council corridors, sucked in some city fathers at the Civic Centre.
They were fingered for not doing due diligence before awarding the tender to the briefcase company.
On October 20, 2011, Council reported a fraud case against Shitazburg and after a full trial at the Mutare Magistrates’ Courts, the company was convicted of fraud.
The court heard that US$330 000 had been paid to the company, although nothing was ever delivered as per the contract.
On May 16, 2013, the court fined the company and in addition ordered it to restitute the total sum of US$330 000.
On June 3, 2015, the court passed judgement in favour of City of Mutare and ordered Shitarzburg and Mwashita to pay the money, together with interest at the prescribed rate from December 30, 2010 to the date of payment.
Council was also awarded costs on an attorney client scale. The writ of execution was issued on June 29, 2015.
However despite the court’s ruling, Council is failing to recover the money as Shitazburg director, Mwashita, is nowhere to be found.
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