A Harare coach builder Milton Mwashita (35) was slapped with an 18-month prison term after he was convicted of selling a client’s bus shell which he had been contracted to rebuild two years ago.
Mwashita, a resident of Hatcliffe, was employed as a coach builder by Road and Hump Springs, located in Southerton industrial area, when he committed the offence.
He was convicted by provincial magistrate Kudakwashe Jarabini on Friday.
However, Mwashita was lucky to escape an effective jail term after the magistrate suspended three months from the total sentence on condition of good behaviour while another eight months were suspended on condition he paid Tobias Simbarashe Chibango $12 000 on or before September 17.
For the remaining seven months, Mwashita will serve 245 hours of community service at Borrowdale Police Station on Saturdays and Sundays.
Mwashita started his community service yesterday. The court heard that sometime in 2009, Mwashita got a contract from a South Africa-based Zimbabwean, Cleopas Gororo, to rebuild an AVM-Daf bus and was given the required spares to fit on the bus.
Mwashita is said to have fitted all the bus spares and in January this year, he sold the bus shell to Tobias Chibango for $12 000.
Gororo then brought the engine from South Africa and was shocked to discover that his bus had been sold. Gororo met Chibango, who had bought the bus and told him he had not authorised Mwashita to sell his bus.
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The matter was reported to the police, leading to Mwashita’s arrest. Memory Mukapa appeared for the State.