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Zimra accountant up for $1,2m fraud

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A ZIMBABWE Revenue Authority (Zimra) accountant yesterday appeared at the Harare Magistrates’ Court charged with swindling the parastatal of over $1,2 million after allegedly converting refunds schedules from the parastatal’s VAT section to personal use.

A ZIMBABWE Revenue Authority (Zimra) accountant yesterday appeared at the Harare Magistrates’ Court charged with swindling the parastatal of over $1,2 million after allegedly converting refunds schedules from the parastatal’s VAT section to personal use.

BY MARY TARUVINGA

Tapuwa Evans Chidemo (44) was not asked to plead when he appeared before magistrate Tendai Mahwe and was remanded out of custody to August 24 on $1 000 bail.

Allegations against Chidemo are that he was the sole user of Paynet for the Zimra Region One funds account with master and administrator access rights to the system, with which he was able to make all changes in payments including fields for bank account numbers and amounts.

The State alleges the suspect would create and delete batches or any transactions in the refund amount batch.

During the period extending from January 2010 to August last year, it is alleged, on different occasions, Chidemo received refund schedules from the Zimra VAT section for the parastatal’s clients for processing.

It is alleged he then changed bank accounts of legitimate Zimra clients of the schedule from legitimate bank accounts of the schedule to illegitimate recipients and thereafter made 105 fraudulent bank transfers of various amounts.

According to court papers, legitimate recipients included Trust Bank Corporation, Earthlink Technologies, Unki Mine and Kenya Embassy, among others, while illegitimate recipients were Release Consultants and Tsitsi Kanyasa, Chidemo’s wife.

According to the State, Chidemo would, in turn, with the assistance of illegitimate recipients, withdraw the money and convert it to personal use. The offence came to light when one of the legitimate clients made a follow-up of his refund, prompting the client to trace all the refunds made by Chidemo. Total prejudice was $1 215 263,42 and nothing was recovered.