ZIMBABWE Red Cross Society (ZRCS) acting secretary-general Elias Hwenga yesterday appeared before a Harare magistrate facing charges of obstructing or defeating the course of justice after he allegedly fired subordinates who had exposed corruption within the organisation to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc).
The State, represented by prosecutor Ephraim Zinyandu, alleges
that sometime in May 2020, some ZRCS employees received anonymous information
through their emails which allegedly unearthed rampant corruption and they
forwarded it to Zacc.
Following the submission of that information, Zacc launched
a probe on three senior officials among them ZRCS board president Edson Mlambo,
secretary-general Maxwell Phiri and Midlands provincial chairperson Vutete
Mazorodze Hapanyengwi who are all facing fraud charges at the courts.
The complainants in the case, Davison Mutikori, Norman
Takawira, Bernard Mupandira, Morris Machawira who are former ZRCS managers and
Fidelis Muyedziwa, were fired following their participation in interviews
during the Zacc probe, which led to the arrest of the three bosses.
After they were arrested, Mlambo and Phiri, who is still at
large, then appointed Hwenga as the acting secretary-general who then signed
letters which terminated the contracts of the four managers.
The complainants were served with suspension notices,
called for a hearing, but the charges were later withdrawn before they
responded to the allegations and were fired instead.
According to the State, almost every employee who was
interviewed by Zacc during investigations on the bosses was fired as their
superiors suspected that they had leaked information which resulted in them
being investigated.
The State also alleges that the tip off to Zacc was written
by one or more employees at ZRCS since it contained internal information which
was only known to employees.
Hwenga, who is being represented by Admire Rubaya, applied
for bail, but the State opposed, arguing that he was likely to tamper with
evidence which was under his custody as the police had not yet retrieved the
documents from him.
The State also argued that he was likely to interfere with
the witnesses who are his former subordinates as he had already blocked their
emails.
Hwenga was not asked to plead when he appeared before magistrate
Ngoni Nduna. Newsday
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