Former ICT Postal and Courier Services Minister, Supa Mandiwanzira has been acquitted of corruption charges levelled against him.
Mandiwanzira had been charged after he appointed his
personal assistant, Tawanda Chinembiri onto the board of the Postal
Telecommunications Regulatory Authority board when he it was claimed he was not
a government employee.
But it was proved that he was indeed a government employee
when a contract was produced. That killed that case.
The court then ruled that Mandiwanzira must be set free and be removed from further remand.
“Having taken over the matter from a different team we went through the state papers as was directed by the court but your Worship we believe that we underestimated the issues which we were supposed to deal with before we prepared the charge sheet and having seen some issues that we need to attend to we then resorted Your Worship, as an office to have adequate time [to] apply our minds and see the way forward on the matter,” the prosecutor said.
“As the state your Worship we have no problem with the accused person being removed from remand.”
“We had promised that we would come up with amended charges as was directed by the court. We had made an undertaking. Your worship, we promised that we will amend the charges as directed by the court. We had actually made an undertaking to the defense that we will amend the charges seven days before this day, today , and we were put on notice that if we fail to adhere to the direction of the court the court will remove the accused person from remand as indications are that the matter has taken long before commencing.”
In another case, Mandiwanzira was accused of engaging Megawatt Energy to investigate corruption at NetOne without going to tender. NetOne was then asked to pay $4 million for the services offered by Megawatt, hence the argument arose.
High Court Judge, Justice Nicholas Manthonsi last year dismissed
this case.
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