Esigodini pair clean out agriculture college of $10k

TWO former workers of Esigodini Agricultural College have appeared in court facing charges of defrauding the institution of than US$10 000.

Colleen Sibanda (51) and Zvineyi Mugwagwa (48) appeared before Esigodini magistrate Mr Tawanda Muchemwa last week jointly facing fraud charges. It was in the State case as represented by prosecutor, Mr Jafta Nyikadzinashe that Sibanda was employed at the institution as a general hand but was elevated to the post of technical assistant in October last year.

The court heard that Sibanda’s new duties made him work with Mugwagwa who was the head of the accounting department.

While in his new office, Sibanda’s job was to accept funds from the students receipting them, updating the ledger cards thereby managing student’s arrears and other duties assigned to him by his supervisor Mugwagwa.

However, he allegedly took the opportunity to swindle the institution by manipulating figures using fake receipts and also updating ledger cards of the students using false information extracted from receipts. The court further heard that the two covered their tracks well such that the figures did not show any signs of missing cash. Despite being able to cover their dirty, auditors from the Government who were carrying out their auditing routine managed to notice the anomaly.

The matter was reported to the police, leading to the arrest of Sibanda. Sibanda told the court that the mastermind behind the fraud was Mugwagwa which also led to her arrest.

Sibanda pleaded guilty and told Muchemwa that they were both behind the missing money and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment while Mugwagwa denied the accusations saying she had nothing to do with the missing cash and was remanded to 6 April for trial. The money was not recovered.