JAILED former Energy minister Samuel Undenge has been
granted $1 000 bail to challenge his four-year jail term for corruption.
High Court judge Justice Erica Ndewere on Wednesday ruled
the former energy minister was a suitable candidate for bail and as part of his
provisional freedom’s conditions, the court ordered him to continue residing at
his Harare Glen Lorne house, report once every week at his nearest police
station and to surrender title deeds of his house.
Undenge, who is being represented by Aleck Muchadehama, was
last month convicted by a Harare regional magistrate on charges of criminal
abuse of office after prejudicing the Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC) of the sum
of $12 000.
In his bail pending appeal application, however, Undenge
said Zanu PF MP, Psychology Maziwisa and broadcaster; Oscar Pambuka used him in
their plot to defraud the power utility.
Undenge further said Harare regional magistrate Hosea
Mujaya had misdirected himself when he convicted him of the offence “for merely
signing a letter which was dictated to him by Pambuka and Maziwisa” on behalf
of the duo’s company, Fruitful Communications.
Undenge further said the magistrate also erred in ignoring
that the said letter, which formed the basis of his conviction, was motivated
by Pambuka, Maziwisa and Fruitful Communications with an intention to defraud
the power company. It was the State’s case that sometime in January 2016,
Maziwisa and Pambuka took Undenge’s signed letter to ZPC, directing the power
utility company to work with Fruitful Communications at intervals of six months
per engagement.
It was the State’s further contention that on March 8,
2016, Maziwisa and Pambuka, with the same intention of defrauding ZPC,
presented to one Chisveto, an invoice claiming they had hosted various
programmes on Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, National FM and Power FM.
Following Undenge’s letter, the power company engaged
Pambuka and Maziwisa following which it then lost $12 000. Newsday
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