AGRICULTURE deputy minister Douglas Karoro will spend the weekend behind bars after he was denied bail yesterday in a case where he is facing charges of stealing presidential agricultural inputs.
The inputs include fertiliser and vegetable seeds, which were
meant for distribution to villagers in Mbire constituency in Mashonaland
Central where he is the MP.
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Karoro appeared before Harare Magistrate Yeukai Dzuda
alongside his co-accused Jeremy Phiri and Dean Zimunya.
They were remanded in custody to Monday for bail
application.
Karoro was arrested on Friday at a roadblock in Mvurwi
while coming from Mbire.
He had allegedly managed to evade arrest for days, and fled
to his constituency.
He was implicated by alleged accomplices, who have since
appeared in court.
One of the suspects, Mugove Chidamba, is the son of another
Zanu PF legislator for Mazowe Central, Sydney Chidamba.
On Friday, one of Karoro’s alleged accomplices Lovejoy
Ngowe, who is the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) Mushumbi manager, appeared before
Harare magistrate Yeukai Dzuda charged with fraud.
According to prosecutors,
sometime in April this year Karoro approached Jeremy Phiri, who is at
large, and told him that he was looking for a buyer for 700 bags of fertiliser.
Phiri allegedly contacted Wisdom Chiodza, who expressed
interest in buying the fertiliser at US$16 per bag.
It is alleged that on April 21, Chiodza paid Phiri US$10
700 towards the purchase of the fertiliser, which he forwarded to Karoro.
Karoro then informed Phiri that the fertiliser was at GMB
Mushumbi.
On April 22, Chiodza collected the fertiliser from the
depot.
However, on April 23, Chiodza was told by Karoro’s
accomplices to return the fertiliser as the deal had gone sour, but he refused.
But he later released 400 bags the following day and was
refunded US$6 400.
It is alleged that on March 7, Ngowe received 30 050 tonnes
of seed maize which was meant for Mbire constituency under the presidential
inputs programme.
Ngowe and Karoro allegedly connived to divert the
consignment, prejudicing GMB of US$18 030 and nothing was recovered.
On March 23, Karoro received a total of 5 000 vegetable
combo kits from Valley Seed Private Limited for handing over to GMB Mushumbi
under the presidential input programme.
Again, Karoro and Ngowe converted the seed to their own
use.
As a result, GMB suffered an actual prejudice of US$25 000
and nothing was recovered. Standard
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