JUSTICE, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister Emmerson Mnangagwa’s name yesterday popped up in a fraud case in which a Harare woman is alleged to have swindled a colleague of $6 000 after misrepresenting that she had won a tender to buy medical equipment and would pay back the cash through the minister.
CHARLES LAITON SENIOR COURT REPORTER
The suspect, Cordella Warambwa (24), is alleged to have convinced Grosswell Zvavahera Mukunyadzi to give her the cash and she in turn surrendered a Toyota Mark II and a Toyota Carina as security and promised to pay back in three days’ time.
But after the expiry of the agreed time, it is alleged, Warambwa failed to settle the debt and it also turned out that the vehicles she surrendered to Mukunyadzi as surety had allegedly been hired from Bonny Kapodogo and Felix Kuda Gondo.
As Mukunyadzi intensified efforts to get his cash back, Warambwa allegedly indicated to him that she had been arrested by the Zimbabwe National Army while in possession of the machines, but Mnangagwa had chipped in to salvage the situation, an assertion Warambwa dismissed as false.
In a statement to the police, one of the State witnesses, Emmanuel Pasipanodya, said: “The following day accused person [Warambwa] phoned me in the morning and advised that she had been arrested, but was released by minister Mnangagwa. They [Warambwa and one Kuda] further said they had been instructed by minister Mnangagwa to come and collect cash on the following Monday. We drove the accused to her home where we dropped her.”
Efforts by prosecutor Nyikadzino Machingura to have the matter deferred to another date proved futile after Warambwa’s lawyer Gift Nyandoro opposed the postponement arguing he wanted the trial to proceed to allow him to clear his client’s name and protect Mnangagwa’s name from being abused.
“My client wants to clear her name because she is alleged to have roped in the names of senior government officials. Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa’s name has been mentioned in this case and there is also mention of her intending to buy some election rigging machines,” Nyandoro said.
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“Matters of this nature have got the effect of tarnishing the image of the minister and the persona of my client. And to impute Mnangagwa’s name in connection with unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations, that my client was involved in the issue of rigging elections where also Mnangagwa’s name is involved, is wrong to say the least.”
Harare magistrate Victoria Mashamba, however, refused to further remand Warambwa and ordered the State to proceed against her by way of summons.
