Mnangagwa sucked into GMB inputs scam

Mnangagwa sucked into GMB inputs scam

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Posted to the web: 19/03/2009 02:14:51
DEFENCE Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa is in the frame over a possible involvement in the abuse of farming inputs from the state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB).

Mnangagwa is set to be grilled in court next week after an aide facing corruption charges named him as a beneficiary of inputs he corruptly accessed from the GMB.

“The minister has been summoned to court. He is expected to appear on 24 March," said defence lawyer Itayi Ndudzo, representing Jeffrey Tabva, a former Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operative and Mnangagwa aide.

GMB’s inputs distribution supervisor Malvern Chani told a Harare magistrate on Wednesday that Tabva had, on May 27, 2008, purchased 720 x 50kgs of urea fertiliser after representing that he was sent by Mnangagwa.

Subsequently, GMB released 500 bags of fertiliser -- all under Mnangagwa’s name -- which were moved from a GMB depot by Andrew Raymond Williams, who is jointly charged with Tabva.

Prosecutors say Tabva and Williams had a plan to loot the national food reserves, using Mnangagwa as cover. Williams insists he was only hired to provide transport, while Tabva argues he had been assigned to source the inputs not only for Mnangagwa but other unnamed Zanu PF officials for distribution to party members.

Defending before magistrate Lillian Kudya, Ndudzo said: "The purchases were for the benefit of various politicians including the Honourable Minister Mnangagwa. At the instance of GMB officials, some commodities for the benefit of Honourable Mnangagwa's constituency were dispatched in his name after GMB had authenticated that the purchases were indeed for his benefit.”

Mnangagwa, one of the most senior Zanu PF officials with President Robert Mugabe’s ear, is expected to reject the politically-damaging allegations.
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