DIRECTORS of a local land developing company have been taken to court for allegedly defrauding Chiredzi Town Council and Chiredzi Rural Council of 1 700 stands and US$ 1 200 000.
The accused, Andrew Chegutu and Godknows Nelson Mandaza, both directors at Full Life Open Arms Africa (Private) Limited, on Friday appeared before Harare magistrate Stanford Mambanje who granted them US$300 bail each and remanded the matter to August 14.
According to State prosecutor Lancelot Mutsokoti, sometime in 2015 the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Fisheries offered Chiredzi Town Council 750 hectares of the remainder of Buffalo Range to develop residential stands for the local community.
The court heard that since the area that Chiredzi Town Council was given was under Chiredzi Rural Council, a joint committee was formed by the two local authorities. The committee’s role was to scout for a suitable developer since both councils didn’t have resources to carry out the project.
The State alleges that on April 16 2014, the two councils engaged the accused to carry out a feasibility study for the project, do all town planning tasks including subdivision of the land until the permit is available as well as identification of possible routes for roads opening and excavation up to hard surface.
In July 2022, the land developer applied for a loan from NMB Bank amounting to US$1 200 000 with the alleged intention to defraud the two councils. The court heard that the loan was applied for the purpose of developing the project but the accused person misrepresented that the loan was guaranteed by the two councils with 1 700 stands given as surety.
The State also alleges that the councils believed that accused persons had taken the loan for development of the project,hence they set aside 1700 stands as guarantee for loan repayment The accused persons only produced the feasibility report, subdivision layout plan and issuance permit, cadastral survey, and engineering designs (for roads, water and sewer). In pursuit of their intention to defraud the councils, the accused allegedly converted the loan to personal use and sold all the 1700 residential stands that were set aside as collateral security to various individual and companies without the knowledge of the two local councils. Investigations by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission established that when the duo sold the residential stands, the proposed stands on the project were not serviced as per agreement, and that there was no subdivision permit or compliance certificate from the two local boards.
Further investigations indicated that the two local authorities are not aware of the actual loan amount borrowed by the accused persons for the purpose of the project since no loan agreement has been availed to them.
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