FOUR Harare City Council officials were yesterday arraigned before Harare regional magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa facing a charge of criminal abuse of office involving US$9 244 328.
Never Murerwa (62), Jabulani Mukomazi (44), Denford Zhungu (69) and Tawanda Mutenhabundo (29) were remanded in custody to today for continuation of bail application.
Murerwa and Mukomazi are employed by City of Harare in the procurement management unit as manager supply chain and principal buyer, respectively.
Zhungu and Mutenhabundo work at council as principal accountant and engineering technician, respectively.
During the material time, they were members of the tender evaluation committee for the refurbishment of streetlights on various roads within Harare.
The four are being represented by George Manokore and Tinashe Toriro.
Prosecutor Lancelot Mutsokoti alleged that sometime in January this year, City of Harare embarked on a rehabilitation of street lights along the capital’s roads in preparation for the 44th Southern African Development Committee Summit, which will be held next month.
On January 29, the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Praz) granted a few specific exemptions to facilitate the expeditious completion of various key projects in time for the summit. Consequently on March 15, a tender was published in the Government Gazette and it was listed on the Praz portal on March 19.
- Free at last: CCC legislator Godfrey Sithole granted $300 000 bail
- Witness nails down fired deputy minister
- Sikhala’s application objecting new court papers dismissed
- Serial rapist in court on 8 counts
Keep Reading
The court heard that 11 companies responded to the tender.
On March 28, Murerwa allegedly appointed the tender opening committee and included his accomplices on the evaluation committee, which awarded four companies the tender to rehabilitate eight of the 10 lots.
Due to lot limitation, no company was awarded more than two lots.
Juluka Endo Joint Venture (JV), a company in which Moses Mpofu is the majority shareholder, was disqualified after failing to meet the tender requirements.
However, the council workers allegedly connived and awarded the tender of the remaining lots to JV.
Mutsokoti said the officials disregarded their earlier decision to disqualify JV and awarded the tender to the company, whose owners also own Synlak (Pvt) Ltd, a company which in 2019 was awarded a tender for a biogas digester and failed to deliver.
This was contrary to standard of bidding document conditions which provides that bidders who have bad records in execution of City of Harare works ineligible.
However, acting on their recommendations, the City of Harare entered into a contract with JV and thereafter commenced preparation for an advance payment of the contract value of US$9 244 328,71.
Yesterday, investigating officer Owen Mutembwa opposed bail indicating that Murerwa and Mukomazi are close associates of Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu.
He said Murerwa and Mukomazi always breached procurement process by favouring Mpofu and Chimombe to win tenders.
The investigating officer said there was documentary evidence, which exposes Mukomazi approving procurements without following procedure.
He said the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission had more than 20 witnesses, while 12 had already had their statements recorded.
