LUPANE — A senior Zanu PF official in Matabeleland North was on Wednesday slapped with an effective one-year jail term for stealing two community diesel-powered engines worth $7 600.
Provincial Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs John Roberts Khumalo (57) had denied the theft charges when he appeared before Lupane magistrate Takudzwa Gwazemba.
But he was convicted and sentenced to three years in jail.
Two years of the sentence were suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour.
The court heard that in the 1990s, the Norwegian Development Agency donated two Lister water pump engines to the Jotsholo community for cattle-rearing projects.
Khumalo was then a councillor for the area. Due to vandalism of public property in the area, the engines were removed from the project and kept by some villagers at home.
Sometime in 2008 after Khumalo lost his council post, he collected the engines from villagers saying he was taking them for repairs.
He sold one of the engines to Zipra Veterans’ Trust chairman Buster Willy Magwizi from whose home it was recovered by police after the community had made a report.
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Khumalo lent the other engine to a Lupane farmer, Christel Dube, and the police have since recovered it from him.
Denying the charges, Khumalo said people in the area alleged the cattle project was a Zanu PF initiative and started attacking cattle benefiting from the water pumps.
In mitigation, through his lawyer, Solomon Mguni, Khumalo asked the court to consider that he is 57 years old and his wife was expecting. Sanders Sibanda prosecuted the case.
