Victoria Falls Mayor Councillor Somveli Dhlamini will spend the weekend in remand prison in Hwange after a magistrate deferred bail ruling to Monday.
Dlamini (53) was arrested by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption
Commission (ZACC) on Thursday in Victoria Falls on allegations of fraud and
failing to declare interest to an authority.
This was after he allegedly misrepresented to the council
and applied for a stand using the name of a resident knowing he was not
eligible since he had benefitted before.
ZACC, which visited Victoria Falls City to investigate
allegations of corruption against Town Clerk Ronnie Dube, unearthed the alleged
scandal involving a stand valued at over US$90 000.
Through his lawyer Givemore Mvhiringi, Dhlamini applied for
bail before Hwange magistrate Collet Ncube Friday.
The magistrate remanded him in custody until Monday when
bail ruling will be made.
Prosecutors said Dlamini faces fraud charges.
“In that on the 15th of August 2022 and at Victoria Falls
City Council offices the accused Somveli Dhlamini who is the mayor of the city
council and in his capacity as such unlawfully and intentionally made a
misrepresentation and purported to be Valentine Munyaradzi Maseko who he had
earlier on in 2003 purchased a stand 1139 from by making an application using
the name Valentine Munyaradzi Maseko to Victoria Falls City Council under the
Wood Road Housing Scheme upon which the council offered him stand number 1771
Wood Road which needed a deposit of US$25 000.”
Dhlamini paid US$10 000 and the balance was supposed to be
paid within five days which he failed to do.
He then paid $7 500 000.
Charges emanate from the fact that Dhlamini misrepresented
himself as Maseko and defrauded the city despite a council resolution of
ordinary full council meeting number 4 of 2020 which stipulated that applicants
must not have benefitted before through allocation, purchase or lost stands
through repossession within Victoria Falls City.
Dhlamini caused the council US$15 000 actual prejudice and
a potential prejudice of US$66 462.75 which got him arrested by the ZACC crack
unit. CITE
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