The forfeiture of Chitukutuku assets in a civil matter,
comes two months after he and ex-Zinara technical director Moses Juma were
acquitted of corruptly awarding a tender to a local company for the
rehabilitation of roads in three rural district councils.
While he was acquitted of criminal corruption, he still
lost the money he acquired through that alleged corruption. In the criminal
trial, the proof had to be beyond reasonable doubt. In the civil suit, the
judge had to only consider the balance of probabilities. This means it is quite
possible that someone can be acquitted of corruption-related charges but lose
assets on the basis that they were bought with corrupt funds.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) sought civil
forfeiture of almost all of Chitukutuku assets, but the High Court left him
something.
In a judgment delivered on Monday, Justice Benjamin
Chikowero ordered forfeiture of a 10 tonne UD truck; Mazda T35 ACN 0695; Toyota
Land Cruiser ADF8240; three John Deere tractors; two Kia tractors; one tractor
trailer and four PVC water tanks.
In addition to the movable properties, the couple’s two
upmarket houses in Borrowdale Estates, on a 4 048 square-metre stand, and in
Glen Lorne on 8 853 square metres.
Further, the court forfeited Chitukutuku’s company, Hot
Spike Trading (Private) Limited’s 40 percent shareholding in Champions
Insurance (Pvt) Ltd. However, the court dismissed the application for civil
forfeiture of Chitukutuku’s farm, two houses in Sentosa and North Highlands,
and a small fleet of vehicles.
He keeps a Mazda ACN 2758; Hino Dutro 2738; Prado ACP 9977;
Nissan NP 200; Range Rover ACM 2555; Hino Ranger 6845 and Land Rover Discovery
ADA 7621.
The two houses left to him are in Sentosa on 9 536 square
metres, registered in favour of Hot Spike Trading (Private) Limited, and in
Colne Valley measuring 4 552 square metres. The farm is in Goromonzi trading as
Farm Pride (Pvt) Ltd.
Through his lawyer Mr Jonasi Dondo, Chitukutuku is seeking
to challenge the forfeiture of the
property. “We are going to appeal (to the Supreme Court) against
forfeiture of the property by end of this week,” said Mr Dondo.
The NPA brought the application for civil forfeiture
against Chitukutuku arguing that he acquired the property using proceeds of
serious offences, which he committed when he was the chief executive officer of
Zinara.
He registered some of the property in his name, some
jointly with his wife and the rest as belonging to his company Hot Spikes (Pvt)
Ltd. Chitukutuku and his wife Nyasha are the directors of Hot Spikes.
In its case, NPA argued that Chitukutuku engaged in conduct
constituting one or more of the offences of corruption, money laundering and
fraud and, as a consequence, obtained money which he then used to acquire and
in some cases develop the property that is the subject of the application.
In this regard, the State asked the court to find that
Chitukutuku had abused his office as Zinara boss by handpicking three companies
without going through tender procedure to provide road rehabilitation services
within the jurisdictions of some rural district councils.
Having identified those companies, he then exerted pressure
on some officials of the local authorities to sign contracts on behalf of their
respective councils. Representatives of the companies appended their
signatures.
Chitukutuku then signed numerous requisition and funds
transfer documents authorising Zinara’s bankers to pay huge sums of money to
each of the companies in question. In this regard, the NPA asked the judge to
find that the companies returned the favour to Chitukutuku in the form of kick
backs which he then used to acquire and develop the properties that were sought
for forfeiture.
On his part, Chitukutuku denied that he handpicked any of
the three companies. He argued through his legal counsel Mr Dondo, that the
various officials of the local authorities, could not have entered into road
rehabilitation contracts with Notify Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd (“Notify”), Twalumba
Civils (Pvt) Ltd (“Twalumba”) and Fremus (Pvt) Ltd (“Fremus”) without complying
with the law relating to tender, knowing very well that they contravened the
criminal laws of the land.
He claimed the local authorities’ officials in question
were all singing from the same hymn book, namely raising the false allegations
that it was Chitukutuku, who handpicked and imposed Notify Enterprises on Bubi and Umzingwane Rural
District Council, Twalumba on Goromonzi Rural District Council and Fremus on
Gutu, Zaka, Buhera and Mhondoro Ngezi Rural District Councils.
Chitukutuku also claimed his wealth, in the form of the property
was lawfully acquired by him. He earned money while employed not only by the
Air Force of Zimbabwe, and chief executive of Zinara, but also from his farming
activities at his Ruwonde Farm in Goromonzi.
But Justice Chikowero, in his judgment, found that despite
Chitukutuku’s spirited efforts to justify the origin of his wealth, he was
convinced on a balance of probabilities that the couple laundered the proceeds
of criminal activities, through Champions Insurance, the farming activities at
Ruwonde farm and the acquisition and improvement of the properties.
“I have already found that the first respondent
(Chitukukutu), at a time when he was the chief executive officer of Zinara, was
involved in the unlawful awarding of road rehabilitation contracts to Notify
Enterprises, Twalumba and Fremus,” said Justice Chikowero.
“I have recorded the huge amount paid to Notify despite it
not having rendered any service at all as the projects pertaining to it were
fictitious.
“In other words, Notify was simply used as a vehicle to
syphon funds from Zinara. The first respondent authorised disbursement of huge
amounts of money in favour of Notify, Twalumba and Fremus.
“The most probable inference that I draw from these proved
facts is that the first respondent was handsomely rewarded for his dual role of
hand picking the three companies and authorising Zinara to pay them.”
In this case, the prosecuting authority ran criminal and
civil cases in tandem. They lost on the criminal side, as Chitukutuku was
cleared of criminal abuse of office as a public officer, fraud, bribery and
money laundering, all arising from his time at Zinara.
But the authority have the civil-forfeiture suit in part to
seize what it believed were the fruits of corruption. Herald
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