Zesa ex-employee sentenced to 90 years for stealing electrical components after sending fake load shedding messages

Mutare Magistrate Lazarus Murendo sentenced Evans Mukorera, 31, of Dangamvura to 90 years in prison for stealing electrical components. Mukurera who is a former Zesa employee would send fake Whatsapp messages warning of load shedding. He would then switch power off at the times he had warned people of, before stealing the components from substations. He did this on nine occasions and as a result of his actions,  residents would sometimes go for days without electricity.

Magistrate Murendo convicted Mukorera on his own plea of guilty and sentenced him to the mandatory minimum  10 years in prison for each count. However, the effective sentence was reduced to 50 years after some sentences were allowed to run concurrently. His friend John Nengomasha, also of Dangamvura was sentenced to 50 years in prison for helping Mukurera on five occasions. The effective sentence was reduced to 30 years after some sentences were allowed to run concurrently as well.

The charge of “tempering, transmitting, distribution or supplying electricity with the result that any supply of electricity is interrupted or cut off or damages, destroys or interferes with any apparatus for generating, transmitting, distributing or supplying electricity” has a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

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