Engineer
Mushanawani approached Harare regional magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa applying
for the revocation of his placement on remand saying his arrest and prosecution
was a violation of his rights as there was no wrongdoing on his part.
The application
was granted yesterday.
In her
findings, Mrs Gofa said everything that the State was accusing him of doing was
an open secret to the company as all Engineer Mushanawani’s principals were
aware of all the system upgrades.
She stated that
there was no evidence linking Engineer Mushanawani to the said offence and
removed him from remand.
The allegations
arose following NetOne’s decision to engage a company called Farevic Systems to
replace its SAGE 1000 accounting system with a new Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) platform.
The State
alleged Engineer Mushanawani connived with NetOne’s chief technology officer
Christopher Muchechemera to secretly contract Lunartech Solutions for an
upgrade of the same SAGE 1000 system.
They further
alleged that Engineer Mushanawani went on to sign two more addendums with
Lunartech, inflating the cost of upgrading a system that was already earmarked
for replacement to more than US$1.2 million and without the approval of
NetOne’s board.
Engineer
Mushanawani’s lawyer Admire Rubaya said his client was arrested for doing
things right at the firm adding that investigators had been misled and exposed
their ignorance of operations at the mobile network operator.
He said there
is no way he could have misrepresented to a board which is composed of highly
qualified experts in technology.
“Accused is at
a loss as to why he finds himself arrested and prosecuted over an issue which
exposes ZACC officers’ lack of understanding of IT Systems.
“SAGE 1000
System product had reached the end-of-sale stage, wherein SAGE South Africa
communicated to NetOne that there was not going to be any maintenance and
support beyond the 31st of December
2024.
“Contrary to
the State`s claims, the upgrading of the SAGE ERP 1000 to SAGE L200 was
imperative as it was a viable alternative wherein Sage South Africa would
provide vendor maintenance and support. This was key and had been approved by
the board.
“The Accused is
lost when it is alleged that there was no Board authority when the same Board
approved the Strategic Plan for 2025, which included the upgrade of the SAGE,
which is currently operational,” his lawyer argued.
He further
argued that none of the said people he allegedly connived with since September
had been arrested which he said shows the allegations were fictitious.
“Up to date no
one has been arrested as having committed the alleged offence with the Accused
person. This clearly shows that the State misrepresented to the court that the
Accused had committed the alleged offence in the manner alleged,” the
application read.
The State
further alleged that Engineer Mushanawani entered into another unapproved deal
with Diztech, paying US$79,467 for consultancy and training services which were
already covered under the Farevic Systems contract, allegations he denied.
“For the
record, there is no contract that was signed between Diztech (Pvt) Ltd and
Netone as alleged, neither has there been any payment of even a dime to Diztech
(Pvt) Ltd from Netone relating to Consultancy and Training Services connected
to SAGE L200, since no such services were ever provided by Diztech (Pvt) Ltd,”
his lawyer said.
They argued the
State had failed to establish a case against him and rebut his version of
events.
“State’s
failure to establish and explain the existence of reasonable suspicion,
particularly taking into account the Applicant’s uncontroverted evidence of the
circumstances of his arrest, serves to confirm the arbitrary nature of the
Applicant’s arrest.” H Metro
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