Zimra staffer in custody over $2m hit

THE Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) has apprehended one of the suspects who tried to transfer nearly $2 million from the taxman’s fiscal accounts and cleared five officers who had been sent on forced leave to facilitate investigations.

In an interview with The Herald yesterday, Zimra commissioner-general Ms Faith Mazani said the suspect would be handed over to police while the cleared officials were being called back to work.

She said the finance director and her two deputies who were also sent on leave remained under investigation.

“Our loss control has picked up the suspect and will hand him over to the police who will then take over the process. He is still in their custody.

“The investigations have gone on throughout the night, but we are happy that the officers can come back to work.

“We are giving them letters so they can start work tomorrow. We have done this so that we do not disrupt our operations,” said Ms Mazani.

“However, the person responsible for the section, that is the finance director and her deputies are still on leave because we are still dealing with the bank.

“We are still looking into our process, which is the responsibility of this team,” she said.

“We are happy that we managed to stop the transaction, which was going to cost Government.

“Yesterday (Saturday) we sent nine officers on leave, seven from the finance department and two from the IT department, because they are the ones responsible for the system,” she said.

The crime was detected by an alert official in the IT security department who noticed a suspicion transfer from a Zimra account into a bank account.