High Court Judge Justice Nicholas Mathonsi criticised bosses of loss making parastatals of stealing money for personal use. He said this while dismissing an appeal by Grain Marketing Board (GMB) Bulawayo Kelvin West depot manager Mr Tapiwa Musvazvi.
Musvazvi was sentenced to 8 years in prison, 2 of which were suspended for 5 years on condition of good behaviour while 3 years were further suspended on condition that Musvazvi repays the $16 000 he stole from GMB with his 5 subordinates by forging receipts. Mathonsi repealed the initial sentence and substituted it with a 5 year sentence of which 1 year was suspended on condition that Musvazvi does not commit a similar crime within that period.
Said Mathonsi:
If there is any reason why struggling parastatals in this country will never extricate themselves from the financial malady, the incongruous state of financial decay they currently find themselves in, it is because of senior management in the mould of the present appellant who have constituted themselves as middlemen, trading with the same parastatals they are assigned to superintend for their own personal aggrandisement.
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