City of Harare defrauded 149 stands

A HOUSING cooperative and its chairman in Budiriro have appeared in court for allegedly defrauding the City of Harare of 149 stands it had given to the rightful owner of another cooperative in the same area.

The rightful beneficiary is Heavy Weight Pay Scheme, but Musasa Housing Pay Scheme and its chairperson Wellington Madziyire (47) submitted a fake offer letter and other requisite documents which led to the eviction of the beneficiary.

Musasa applied for an interdict at the High Court after submitting fraudulent documents authenticating their cooperative as original owners of the piece of land.

The housing cooperative and Madziyire, who is charged with forgery, fraud and perjury, appeared before Harare magistrate Mr Dennis Mangosi.

Madziyire was admitted to US$100 bail and will return to court on April 23 for routine remand.

Prosecutor Mr Thomas Chanakira alleged that sometime in 2018, City of Harare wrote to Heavy Weight Pay Scheme advising that its members had been offered 149 housing stands in Budiriro Township under plan number TPX/WR/03/14.

On November 22, 2019, the council advised members of Heavy Weight of the amount they were supposed pay per square meter.

In different periods starting from March 2019 to April 2020, all members were given authority to pay a provisional land development deposit.

Then in March 2020, accounts were opened from Budiriro Council District Office where files were prepared.

On June 20 last year, the local authority got information that there were people undertaking water and sewerage reticulation works at Budiriro on stands that the City of Harare had allocated to Heavy Weights Pay Scheme.

The council’s director of housing, Mr Addmore Nhekairo, made checks with the principal housing officer Mr Edgar Dzehonye, who indicated that he discovered two files regarding the said stands.

The identified file was for Musasa Housing Pay Scheme which had an allocation letter of 149 stands purportedly written by Mr Nhekairo on April 19, 2017.

At that time Mr Nhekairo was not employed by the City of Harare.

The court heard that the memo stated that it originated from the acting director of Housing and Social Development, whilst the signature written belonged to the director of Housing and Community Services.

The memo was directed to the director of

Harare Water and the director of Works but was found in the hands of Madziyire.

In the other file, there was an offer letter for Heavy Weight Pay Scheme, which was officially signed by the housing director.

Mr Chanakira further alleged that Madziyire submitted minutes purportedly from the city’s Finance and Development Committee dated December 12, 2019, which was also forged since the committee never sat down to discuss the issue.

Madziyire failed to produce the original copy for verification.

He was found in possession of a survey plan. Madziyire equipped himself with all the forged documents and submitted them to Elias Banda for file opening at the city council.

On March 8 2023, Madziyire went further to make an application for interdict under case number HREC-CD222/23 and tendered these forged documents.

He allegedly wrote an affidavit which he signed under oath making the court believe that the information supplied was true and correct, resulting in him being granted the relief sought.

Sometime in 2021, the chairman of Heavy Weight Pay Scheme visited their stands in Budiriro township and was unlawfully evicted by Madziyire.