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Nkomo case sucks in Chiyangwa, Mawere
By
Staff Reporter
FORMER Mining Industry
Pension Fund chief executive officer, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, facing corruption
and fraud charges involving $3 570 000 dating back to 1997, on Monday
said the charges against him were instigated by businessmen Philip Chiyangwa
and self-exiled Mutumwa Mawere after he refused to give them loans.
Nkomo — who allegedly received $570 000 kickback from Trevor Caresle-Juul — claimed he refused to release money from the pension fund to revive Chiyangwa’s G&D Shoes in Bulawayo and to refurbish Shabanie-Mashava Mine hospital for Mawere.
“The charges were cooked up by some people whose names I have got. It was Philip Chiyangwa and Mutumwa Mawere. As a CEO I was involved in investment. I was approached by Chiyangwa who wanted me to finance G&D Shoes in Bulawayo and Mawere a hospital in Shabanie-Mashava, but I was afraid I was going to lose the funds,” Nkomo claimed.
He was referring
to a statement he made to the police in 2000 in which he made the allegations,
but he did not disclose the business mogul’s names.
Nkomo was making an application before regional magistrate Sandra Nhau
seeking leave to approach the Supreme Court to permanently stay the
proceedings in the case he believes the State has taken too long to
prosecute, violating his constitutional right.
He made the application through Harare lawyer, Godfree Mamvura of Scanlen and Holderness.
Mamvura argued: “I wish to raise a constitutional question as to the contravention of the accused’s constitutional right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time as provided by the Constitution of Zimbabwe. I submit that there has been an inordinate delay of six years and five months in bringing the accused to trial and the old adage, justice delayed is justice denied must not be overlooked. The accused requests this honourable court to refer this question to the Supreme Court in terms of Section 24 (2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.”
Nkomo, also the chief executive of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), told Nhau that he was arrested in 2000 for crimes allegedly committed between 1997 and 1999.
He said he was
brought to court and refused remand on the same year (2000) and the
matter only re-surfaced as a summons case in March 2006.
This, he said, was all because the State does not have enough evidence
against him to secure a conviction.
However, Prosecutor Obi Mabahwana was quick to remind him that refusal of remand did not imply that a case was dead as the State could proceed by way of summons.
He said Nkomo’s case was complicated and produced the police diary of investigations to the court, arguing that the case had been brought for trial at a reasonable time.
“In an application of this nature, the court has to decide whether the accused person’s application is frivolous and vexatious and if it is, it should be dismissed. Indeed the State is privy to an accused’s constitutional right to a trial within a reasonable time. But what is a reasonable time?
“The court should also bear in mind that there is a maximum time. In the instant case can one say this matter is now being prosecuted without the prescribed period? The State would not have used State machinery and wasted the court’s time. The State has brought its case within a reasonable time and the defence’s application should be rendered frivolous and vexatious,” Mabahwana argued.
Nhau will rule on Nkomo’s application on August 10.
The State alleged that between December 1997 and June 30 1999, Nkomo accepted $570 000 from ex-football administrator Caresle- Juul to offset his debt with a Harare company, udc.
The money was allegedly paid through Concept Office Furniture so Taylor Woodrow Zimbabwe would build Angwa City, one of the capital's high-rise state-of-the-art structures.
Nkomo also allegedly caused the pension fund’s board of trustees to approve Caresle-Juul’s SBT Caresle-Juul Africa to be Angwa’s Architect Development managers.
On November 6 1997, he allegedly lied to the board that $3 million was required by Taylor Woodrow as a fee to enter into a partnership which was never recovered.
During the same
period of 1997 to 1999, Mabahwana further alleged that Nkomo failed
to disclose to the board that a company, Finesse Zimbabwe, which did
the glazing part of Angwa City belonged to Caresle-Juul, who also was
proprietor of SBT, the architect development managers - Daily Mirror
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