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Fungai Lupande Court Reporter
MetBank chief executive officer and former Air Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd board chair Mr Ozias Bvute has been accused of complicity in the alleged multi-million US dollar aviation insurance fraud at the national airline. Also implicated is Mr Nathan Chikono, said to be the owner of Champion Insurance Brokers.

The two were fingered by sacked Air Zimbabwe company secretary Grace Pfumbidzayi as she sought bail at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts yesterday where she is facing charges of criminal abuse of duty as a public officer and fraud.

Her co-accused are former acting group chief executive officers Innocent Mavhunga (53) and Peter Chikumba, with the three said to have prejudiced the State enterprise of €5 175 593 and US$502 748 in the alleged insurance scam. Pfumbidzayi, who is represented by Mr Andrew Muvirimi, submitted her defence outline during the bail application.

While telling the court that she served the airline for 29 years, starting as an air hostess, she also accused Mr Bvute and Mr Chikono of insurance fraud.

“The directors of Air Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd have strong reasons to falsely incriminate Pfumbidzayi because Chikono’s company, Champion Insurance, has taken over the management of the insurance portfolio and the tender board was not involved.

“Chikono sits on the finance committee of board of directors and he is the chairman, naturally the accused being a lawyer raised the issue of conflicts and this is when the problem started.

“Champion Insurance was awarded the contract, directors and officers liability cover at US$50 000 per annum for a limit of US one million dollars without going to tender.

“Secondly the company was awarded the temporary importation bond of US$100 000 per annum for a limit of US$5 million.
“Thirdly there was a duplicate of an insurance liability covering passengers and would have collected US$5 million in one year based on the airline’s estimated passengers,” he said.

She claimed that she had stepped on some powerful people’s toes by “interfering” with the plans and they in turn proffered criminal charges against her.

“Was it a coincidence that the board chair of Airzim corporate bank account which was CBZ is now with Metropolitan Bank where Bvute is the chief executive of that bank?” her lawyer posited.

Mr Bvute was Air Zimbabwe chairperson until last week.
Submitting her bail application, the lawyer said Pfumbidzayi was the acting managing director at the time she was sent on forced leave before being suspended and reinstated, suspended again and reinstated again, and then “unlawfully” discharged.

“The State case is weak and it is her evidence that in terms of the lease agreement relating the two A320 air buses, the airline should have insured them on delivery in France in 2011.

“Various reasons including technical faults caused the airline to fail to take delivery of the planes, therefore kept extending the cover for the aircraft,” he said in reference to two aircraft that Pfumbidzayi is alleged to have doubly insured at the prejudice of Air Zimbabwe.
Mr Muvirimi added, “The police conveniently omitted to inform the court when the debit notes were issued, how they were issued and how they were intercepted and who intercepted them.

“They omitted to inform the court the period which the cover notes extended. Those debit notes were not processed because of supervening circumstances relating to the unworthiness of the aircraft which led to extend cover.”

Mr Muvirimi said the Air Zimbabwe board was raising issues about events done at a separate entity, Air Zimbabwe Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, and yet the latter had not made any complaint in the matter.

Meanwhile, in Mavhunga’s bail application, his lawyer Mr Ticharwa Garabga said the former Air Zimbabwe CEO would not flee justice because he had one child in the United Kingdom, another at a university in Canada, and one at St George’s College in Harare, and he had to take care of them all.

“His wife has a life-threatening illness and requires medical attention. The accused is willing to pay US$2 000 as bail and adhere to stringent bail conditions,” he said.

Prosecutor Mr Michael Reza opposed bail, indicating that the accused had connections outside the country.
“One of the lawyers submitted that his client travels all over the world. If granted bail, the accused is likely to abscond given the large sums of money involved,” he said.

Magistrate Mr Tendai Mahwe will make a ruling on the bail application today.
Pfumbidzayi and Chikumba, who are jointly charged with fraud, did not have their bail applications entertained yesterday due to time constraints.

They all appeared before magistrate Mr Douglas Chikwekwe who postponed the matter to today.