Businessman Hartnack denied bail
BUSINESSMAN Adam James Hartnack, who allegedly defrauded the Meteorological Services Department of more than US$70 000 meant for cloud seeding, was yesterday denied bail.
Hartnack is being jointly charged along with his company Adamair Private Limited on three counts of fraud.
Harare regional magistrate Mr Stanford Mambanje noted that Hartnack was a flight risk and if granted bail, he was not likely to return to court for trial.
The Sate alleges that he misrepresented to the Met Department through a flight analysis schedule for the 2018-19 cloud seeding season that there were two aeroplanes which were on standby for the programme and standby fees were charged for an aircraft that was out of the country undergoing maintenance. He also allegedly lied when charging for cloud seeding that never took place.
The court heard that on November 21, 2018 Hartnack’s company Adamair (Pvt) Limited was awarded a tender for cloud seeding by the then Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Climate and Rural Settlement and on December 31, the Ministry of Lands transferred US$400 000 into Adamair’s account as advance payment for the programme.
On February 1, 2019, Adamair pulled out one of its aircraft out of the contract and flew it to South Africa for maintenance and it returned on March 3. While that aircraft was in South Africa, Hartnack lied that the aircraft was on standby for the cloud seeding programme and charged the Met Department US$1 600 for standby fees per day and Value Added Tax of US$240. Adamair was then paid US$55 200.
On March 4, 2019 Hartnack is also alleged to have misrepresented to the Met Department that he had carried out cloud seeding operations in the northern part of the country for more than three hours and was paid US$1 600 per hour.