VENDORS and the community at Shangani business centre in Insiza, Matabeleland South province, have called for speedy delivery of justice in a case of fraud involving a local councillor.
The villagers are accusing ward 23 councillor Nomusa Moyo (Citizens Coalition for Change) of allegedly defrauding them of more than US$900 collected ostensibly to acquire trading licences for vendors.
In a statement tiled: Justice For Shangani Vendors, the villagers expressed concern over the delay in the prosecution of the case, adding that they were losing confidence in the country’s judicial system.
“We demand justice for Insiza North Shangani ward 23 vendors. Our ward councillor Nomusa Moyo is implicated in a fraud case in which she duped vendors using her influence as a public office bearer,” the vendors said in the statement.
“She called a vendors meeting and collected money from vendors in May 2024 promising to facilitate the processing of vending licences for them on the first of June 2024, but nothing came out until today.”
They said the Insiza Rural District Council payments office told the councillor to return the money to the vendors in June last year.
“In agreement that they were supposed to visit Filabusi and do payments themselves not a for ward councillor to collect payments. The chief executive officer (Shepherd Tshuma) does not send ward councillors to collect tariff payments but Moyo came up with her own plan to dupe vendors,” they said.
“She went on to use the money for personal use, doing her own personal business with that money and she became evasive and threatened to remove vendors from their vending sites if they continue demanding receipts until the vendors reported the matter to the police in October 2024 leading to her arrest.”
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The vendors said the case had been in court about 10 times but was yet to be finalised.
“The current problem here is that vendors are travelling 100km to attend court in Bulawayo pumping transport fare from their own pockets,” the statement read.
Court records state that vendors from Insiza dragged Moyo to court after she allegedly collected money from them on the pretext of procuring licences for them.
Moyo recently appeared before Bulawayo regional magistrate Joseph Mabeza, to answer to a charge of criminal abuse of duty as a public officer.
Allegations are that she collected US$933 from 13 vendors as vending licence fees but the vendors allegedly never received the licences and they reported the matter to the police.
Moyo is being represented by Prince Butshe Dube of Mathonsi Ncube Law Chambers. The case has ben postponed indefinitely with some witnesses still to testify.
The councillor is denying the charge arguing that the vendors never gave her the money. She allegedly accused them of being Zanu PF members pushing a political agenda.
In their testimonies, some of the vendors told the court they gave the money to the councillor in the hope of receiving vending licence but never did.
Prosecutor Dominic Moyo told the court that between May 1 and October 18 last year at Shangani business centre in Fort Rixon, the councillor abused her position as a public officer when she collected US$933 from 13 vendors and converted the money to personal use.
