THREE employees at a Bulawayo retail shop, Fazak Gift Centre, appeared in court yesterday charged with defrauding their employer of goods worth $71 290.
SILAS NKALA Gift Gwaenda (33) an electric department supervisor, till operator Elinah Mbewe (30) and transporter, Munyaradzi Maronga (37) denied the charge when they appeared before magistrate Gladmore Mushove. Gwaenda and Maronga were represented by lawyers Tanaka Muganyi and Zibusiso Ncube respectively, while Mbewe was unrepresented.
The firm’s auditor, Lance Nyavikondo told the court that the alleged scam was unearthed during an audit, but Muganyi disputed the claims and accused him of practising without relevant auditing qualifications.
The court heard that between January 1 and July 31 2015, Gwaenda, Mbewe and Maronga allegedly connived to defraud their employer using duplicate invoices.
Gwaenda allegedly misrepresented that some goods in his department were on high demand and influenced the increase of orders of the said items.
Orders were later made on 133 occasions and Mbewe, allegedly conniving with Gwaenda and Maronga, re-printed copy invoices and used them to book the goods in the shop’s collection book purporting the items listed had been bought.
It is alleged that Gwaenda and Mbewe approached Maronga and handed him some goods booked in the collection book. Maronga allegedly signed for the goods and transported them away from the retail shop before disposing of them.
It is the State case that the fraud caused the retail shop to be prejudiced of $71 298 and nothing was recovered.
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The matter was remanded to March 10 to allow the State to call in more witnesses.
Jeremiah Mutsindikwa prosecuted.
