A legal manager at the Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe has appeared in court on allegations of forging documents needed by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission to see if a vehicle bought for the IDCZ acting general manager had gone through the proper tender procedures.
Ropafadzo Kunze (35) was facing charges of defeating or obstructing the course of justice when he appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Vongai Guwuriro Muchuchuti on Thursday.
He was granted $100 000 bail.
The court heard that in January this year, ZACC received reports that there had been criminal abuse of duty and fraud by top management at the IDCZ. Team Chapwanya was assigned to investigate these allegations under ZACC case reference HCR26/01/23.
One allegation was of flouting tender procedures in the procurement of two service vehicles, a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Ford Raptor, for the acting general manager of IDCZ, Edward Tome.
On January 31, the commission wrote to the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) requesting a statement of procedure and a comment on whether IDCZ followed the stipulated procurement procedures when it bought these two vehicles. So on February 10, PRAZ wrote to the IDCZ acting general manager requesting the procurement record of the two vehicles.
Kunze, in his capacity as the legal manager, was then tasked by the acting general manager to respond to the PRAZ request and to hand over the procurement records of the two vehicles.
This was despite the fact that the response was supposed to have come from Sunway City a subsidiary of IDCZ which is the procuring entity for IDCZ for goods and services that require tenders.
The court heard that on February 14, Kunze, without the knowledge and consent of Collin Mutingwende, the CEO of Sunway City, drafted a letter with a Sunway City letterhead and pasted in the electronic signature of Mr Mutingwende.
After allegedly forging the letter Kunze ordered procurement manager Vimbiso Chikwereti to deliver the forged letter together with the procurement records for the two vehicles to PRAZ.
Paragraph 3 of this letter written to PRAZ stated that “please note that the said two vehicles are not service vehicles. Same were not procured for the acting general manager and or board chairperson but for the Industrial Development Corporation of Zimbabwe”.
This contradicted the IDCZ internal requisition of December 23 2021 which specifically requested for a domestic competitive tender for a diesel 4X4 SUV for acting general manager Mr Tome.
By writing to PRAZ stating that the vehicles had not been bought for the general manager and were not service vehicles, Kunze sought to obstruct or to defeat the course of justice since PRAZ would then give its opinion based on incorrect information, thereby exonerating the acting general manager from liability.
It is the State’s case that during the course of investigations, it was established that Mr Mutingwende did not generate the letter sent to PRAZ and Kunze allegedly forged it, as he did with a second letter to PRAZ denying that the Ford Raptor was purchased as an executive pool vehicle, when it was. – The Herald
