CHICKEN SLICE LOSES US$45K TO ACCOUNTANT

A FORMER financial accountant at Chicken Slice, Tinashe Zengenene, has appeared in court charged with fraud after diverting payments totalling US$45 000 that were meant for suppliers from Slice Distributors to his own use.

Senior internal auditor, Paddington Mungate, raised the alarm after discovering that some payment transactions dating back to 2022 remained pending.

Upon interrogation, Zengenene (30), cleared some transactions, but failed to clear others, leading to an internal investigation that revealed that he had used the money to which he had access for his own purposes.

As a financial accountant, Zengenene’s duties included authorisation of company payments and making daily account reconciliations.

It’s the State’s case that Mungate was doing daily routine checks verifying payments made by the company to suppliers when he discovered that there were some pending payment transactions dating back to 2022.

He investigated further since he had information that the company had released funds to the finance department to clear all payments.

Mungate engaged Zengenene who was responsible for paying suppliers and he requested two weeks to clear all pending transactions.

During the two-week period, Zengenene allegedly cleared some transactions and failed to clear some, which remain outstanding to date.

On February 1, Mungate then obtained statements from 10 suppliers and noted that some of the money that Zengenene signed for had not been received by the suppliers.

A preliminary internal audit was conducted by the company and showed that the 10 companies were not paid yet US$45 146 had been released to Zengenene to pay suppliers.

Nothing was recovered.

Rufaro Chonzi appeared for the State.