Registrar General Clemence Masango who was arrested on Thursday last week for criminal abuse of office and flouting tender procedures in purchase of five service vehicles faces fifteen years in jail.
Representing the State this Friday, Prosecutor Francisca Mukumburi told the court that in 2018, Masango sought authority to purchase vehicles he said were to be used to improve access to district registries and sub-offices.
The Home Affairs ministry secretary Melusi Matshiya to purchase two Toyota Land Cruiser 200LC but the approval was later cancelled.
The prosecutor added that last year, Masango unlawfully and corruptly originated a memorandum to the accountant, Ndamukanei Gota, instructing him to buy the Land Cruisers despite the cancellation of the approval.
He also allegedly instructed the transfer of US$78 505 towards the purchase of a Ford Ranger and US$95 291 for the purchase of five Isuzu Lite vehicles without Cabinet authority and approval from the ministry as well as from the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe.
The transactions went through without binding contracts and the six vehicles were delivered to Civil Registry Department.
Harare regional magistrate Bianca Makwande yesterday granted him a $10 000 bail also ordered him to report twice at Waterfalls Police Station, not travel beyond a 40km radius of Harare, barred from visiting the Registrar-General’s Office, surrender title deeds to his Borrowdale property and surrender his passport.
pronouncement of a sentence already on RG Masango while investigations are ongoing makes the judicial process very anti-human and predatory that way placing the RG and many other defenseless in a position of victimhood of an already well manipulated acquittal of targeted justice. At any rate if the beneficiary still remains the state which is in possession of the assets now, the sentence which is to be administered in a people centred process should amount to a mere routine reprimand not the outrageous decade plus sentence pronounced as if there are judicial novices on the bench but being signalled from around corners what sentence to give. In any case what flexibility does the RG/ Executives have over purchases in terms of urgency and systemic delays and is this presumed sentence consistent with other state functionaries / executives [ministers, VPs and Parliamentarians, etc] before him. Yes, Arrests are necessary but when inconsistent and placing others into synicized victimhood, even birds of the air have but a lot of outstanding fundamental questions.