Online Reporter
IF Zimbabwe ever needed a modern parable about greed dressed up as empowerment, Moses Mpofu and Mike Chimombe have just provided the deluxe edition.
The two seasoned “empowerment” crusaders decided that poverty alleviation needed their special brand of innovation — complete with forged certificates, phantom goats and a tender scheme so brazen it could make the most notorious fraudster blush.
These two were not satisfied with ordinary theft. Oh no!
They aimed higher, straight into the udders of the Presidential Goat Pass-On Scheme, an otherwise noble programme meant to empower rural communities by giving them live goats to breed, multiply and lift themselves out of poverty. A beautiful idea.
Mpofu and Chimombe saw none of that.
To them, goats were not livestock for rural households but digits on an invoice, numbers to be inflated, contracts to be looted and public funds to be chewed to the bone.
The facts of the case read like a corruption manual for the hopelessly dishonest.
Using Blackdeck Private Limited — a company so lifeless it had been deregistered in 2016 — the duo dusted off forged ·
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) and National Social Security Authority (NSSA) compliance certificates and presented them to the Government as if nothing was amiss. Armed with paper lies and boundless confidence, they secured a staggering five-year tender worth US$87,7 million.
And the State, acting in good faith and trusting official documents, released an initial deposit of ZWL1,6 billion, equivalent to US$7,7 million at the time.
For nearly US$8 million, Mpofu and Chimombe delivered just 4 208 goats, valued at about US$331 445. The rest of the money?
It apparently developed legs, horns and wings — because it certainly did not develop poor communities.
The State was left nursing an actual prejudice of US$7,38 million, while the intended beneficiaries of the empowerment programme were left with empty kraals, broken expectations and stories of a scheme that never reached them.
Justice Pisirayi Kwenda was unimpressed, and rightly so.
In his ruling, the judge tore into the calculated and sophisticated nature of the fraud, noting how the pair abused public trust and hijacked a national empowerment initiative for personal enrichment.
This was not accidental bookkeeping; it was a deliberate, well-planned raid on public resources.
The court made it clear that corruption dressed up as entrepreneurship will not be tolerated, and tender fraud — especially when it tramples on programmes meant for the poor — deserves severe punishment.
The two remind us that corruption is not always loud and dramatic; sometimes it wears a suit, submits neat paperwork, smiles at officials and steals quietly while pretending to empower the poor.
Last week, while the goats may not have arrived where they were meant to, but justice certainly did.
Justice Kwenda finally called time on their grazing spree.
Mpofu was handed a 22-year sentence, with some portions suspended, leaving him with an effective 15 years.
Chimombe followed with 17 years, which were reduced to an effective 12 years behind bars. Ample time for both men to count imaginary goats in very real prison cells.
