FORMER Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) managing
director Thomas Makore included his personal domestic workers on the
financially-strapped coal miner’s official monthly payroll — among other poor
corporate governance practices — which saw the company losing substantial
revenue during his turbulent four-year tenure, an external forensic audit has
revealed.
The audit, by Ralph Bomment Greenacre & Reynolds,
discovered that Makore received his domestic workers’ wages along with his
monthly salary, while at the same time they also got separate monthly payments
from the normal HCCL monthly payroll.
“From the foregoing circumstance, Mr Thomas Makore double
dipped, in the absence of further contractual evidential information on his
personal file to the contrary. There was no evidence that Mr T S Makore paid
the domestic workers from the allowances he received. The said domestic workers
were being paid by the mine and form part of the outstanding mine wages,” the
audit report reads.
However, the auditors could not quantify the actual
prejudice because senior executives at HCCL refused to cooperate.
“Any accurate prejudice cannot be assessed as the Estates
person, a Mr Moyo, in charge of such labour did not cooperate with us despite him
being asked by Mrs Kamocha, the Payroll Accountant, to provide us with
information about the persons who actually worked at Mr T Makore’s residence
for confirmation about whether in addition to their mine salaries, Mr T Makore
paid them extra money or not. Suffice to state that the matter ranks for
misfeasance in the absence of evidence to the contrary,” the report reads.
Makore, auditors said, also oversaw the purchase of
malfunctioning mining equipment for HCCL from a company called Turbo Mining
without carrying out an inspection.
Auditors also found out that the equipment may have been
overvalued, raising the possibility of corruption.
“Management did not carry out an inspection about whether
the equipment which HCCL went on to buy functioned properly or whether it was
serviceable or not before purchasing it. HCCL engineering personnel carried out
the inspection after the purchase agreement had been signed already.
“The management did not perform valuation of Turbo Mining
before purchasing the assets. Valuation was performed 80 days later as at 13
July, 2015 and the report is dated 16 July, 2015. HCCL may have lost US$1 199
975. The Managing Director Mr Thomas Makore signed the contract of purchase on
24 April, 2015. Auditors believe that the process was not clear, and needed an
investigation of the matter,” the report further reads.
Mines minister Winston Chitando, who was implicated in the
report as having allegedly orchestrated shady business dealings and presided
over the misuse of a US$115,5 million loan at the troubled mine, this week
declined to comment on the audit, saying he was yet to see a copy of the
document.
“It’s unfortunate that I don’t even know it was published.
I await to be given a copy but all I can say is that from time the board (which
I chaired) was appointed, we were observing all corporate government issues. I
haven’t seen it, I will wait to see it before I can comment,” he said.
The rot picked up by the auditors spanned three years to
2018. Makore was suspended by the former HCCL board which was led
by Juliana Muskwe to pave way for investigations into allegations of corruption
and mismanagement mid-last year.
He, however, resigned in the middle of the investigation,
which included the forensic audit.
HCCL was placed under reconstruction last October after it
emerged that it had become technically insolvent.
There were plans last year by the company to sell houses it
owns in Hwange, the biggest town in the resource-rich Matabeleland North
province, to offset a US$300 million debt.
Contacted for comment, Makore said: “I have not seen the
report.” Zimbabwe Independent
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