adminElizabeth Tsuro Midlands Reporter
A MKOBA Teachers’ College accountant and her assistant have appeared in court for allegedly defrauding the institution of more than $36,000.
The accountant, Gladys Chinheya Chatikobo, 35, of Mbizo in Kwekwe and her assistant Fine Ruzive, 49, of Mkoba suburb in Gweru appeared before provincial magistrate Phathekile Msipha facing 14 counts of theft and fraud.
The duo only pleaded guilty to four of the counts.
They were remanded in custody to November 18 for judgment.
In their defence, Chatikobo and Ruzive blamed the college’s outdated accounting system for some of the accounting errors.
They also said they shared the office with other three people on attachment who might have taken advantage of the situation to steal the money.
Prosecutor, Ernest Muzembi, told the court that on July 7 this year, Mkoba Teachers’ College principal, Florence Dube, noticed a long queue of students at the administration offices paying their fees and collecting their certificates.
He said Dube expected increased revenue for the college at the end of the month.
“On August 12 Dube and the finance committee held a meeting where she noted that cash collected during the month of July was too low despite the long queue of students paying fees she had witnessed,” said Muzembi.
“On August 14, Dube received information from one of her staff members that Chatikobo and Ruzive were under-receipting the money collected.”
She was then supplied the names of students who had paid the money that the official suspected was under-receipted, the court heard.
Muzembi said Dube made a follow up on the information she had received and managed to contact 69 students who came to the college with their original receipts, and some anomalies were detected.
“Chatikobo entered the correct amount on the original receipts given to the student and a lesser amount on the carbon copy,” said Muzembi.
He said Dube then checked into the accounting system and discovered that Chatikobo connived with Ruzive and created an unprocedural journal voucher module to capture student copy receipts written by Chatikobo instead of using the procedural receipting module.
“To cover up for the offence, Ruzive used original copies (student copies) written by Chatikobo to enter details of payments into the pastel systems instead of using carbon copy receipts,” he said.
Dube reported the matter to the police leading to the duo’s arrest. $36,190 was stolen and nothing was recovered.
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