A Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) investigating officer has told a Harare magistrate of how a couple allegedly forged company registration documents to illegally take control of a lodge owned by former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono.
The Zacc investigator Eric Chacha told magistrate Stanford Mambanje on Friday that Clark and Beverly Makoni allegedly used a fraudulent CR14 form to change the ownership of Gono’s Valley Lodge.
They also allegedly used the same document, which was produced in court as an exhibit, to open a bank account with ZB Bank.
Chacha said after Gono reported the offence he started investigations by proceeding to the Registrar of Companies where he was showed the CR14.
The CRI4 form showed that Ayoob and Mohamed Omar were the directors of a company that owned Valley Lodge.
Chacha said while investigating the matter he was shown an agreement of sale between the Omars and Gono.
He said the company owned by Omar sold all its shares in Valley Lodge to Gono.
"I went on to request ZB Bank to provide current bank statements, directorship of the Valley Lodge that was submitted to the bank after the changes,” Chacha said.
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"The requested documents revealed that their company Ark Property is an estate agent.”
He said when they went to Mutare ZRP to carry out further investigations. they found out that the accused persons had submitted a spoliation order to the police showing that the accused persons were owners of Valley Lodge, which was not true.
"Through these fake CR14 the accused person managed to change the ownership of Valley lodge,” Chacha said.
"We discovered that during that time the accused corruptly and fraudulently changed the CR14 without the authority of the complainant.
"They removed Ayooba Omar from the CR14 without the consent of either Omar or Gono
"From the document that we got from ZB Bank we observed that on October 2023 the accused again fraudulently changed the signatories to Valley Lodge account without the knowledge of the complainant.
"At the bank they presented the forged CR14 in which the bank believed that they were the directors of Valley Lodge properties.”
Chacha told court that the accused persons even submitted an affidavit at the High Court while seeking a spoliation order stating they were the real owners of Valley Lodge.
Chacha also told the court under cross examination from Makoni’s lawyer Admire Rubaya that the accused person signed a deed of settlement with Gono as a means of admitting to the offence.
The investigating officer said if the accused person had nothing to do with the allegations he would not have signed the deed of settlement to settle the funds he had no knowledge of Prosecutors alleged that the Makonis orchestrated a sophisticated scheme, beginning with the forgery of a CR14 form.
This document, central to the prosecution's argument, purportedly appointed Clark as director and company secretary of Valley Lodge, with his wife Beverly designated as his deputy.
Other charges relate to the couple’s alleged misrepresentation to the bank, where they falsely claimed to be new shareholders in a bid to change signatories to Valley Lodge’s bank accounts.
The prosecution argued that through these fraudulent acts, the Makonis illicitly took over Gono’s company, gained unauthorised access to its bank accounts, and ultimately embezzled ZWL172 million by that time.
