TWO National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm) employees yesterday appeared before a Harare magistrate facing fraud charges involving $17 460.
BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE
Blessmore Madhanzi (32) and Muhle Khumbulani Dube (30) were granted $100 bail by magistrate Bianca Makwande coupled with reporting conditions.
NatPharm is a department in the Ministry of Health and Child Care and is responsible for buying and selling drugs to hospitals and pharmacies.
The State alleges between January 2015 and February this year, Madhanzi and Dube, who were employed as sales representative and accounts clerk respectively, hatched a plan to defraud the company.
It is alleged Madhanzi would identify cash-on-delivery paying customers and refer them to Dube, who would allegedly open fraudulent credit facility accounts.
The pair would allegedly enter false information in the records, including fake physical addresses.
The State further alleges after supplying the drugs, Dube would create a credit facility for customers purporting as if they purchased the medicines on credit.
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Madhanzi would then collect cash from the customers and issue them with a company receipt and would not hand over the received cash to the complainant and share it with Dube.
To cover up their acts, the two would allegedly write off the customers as bad debtors and also destroyed the files containing application forms for account holders in order to conceal evidence.
As a result, the Ministry of Health suffered actual prejudice of $17 460,63 and nothing was recovered.
Peter Kachirika appeared for the State.
