Top cleric swindled US$250k

cashforsurveys1
Tendai Rupapa Senior Court Reporter

A leading cleric with Spoken Word Ministries Pastor Godwin Chitsinde has allegedly lost US$250 000 in a botched property sale. Pastor Chitsinde allegedly bought a house in Borrowdale from Ashley Ezekiel Kucherera, who later fraudulently acquired title deeds and a High Court order and evicted the man of the cloth.

Kucherera (42) appeared in court last Friday before Mr Donald Ndirowei charged with fraud.
He was remanded to August 1 on US$500 bail coupled with conditions, which included residing at his given address and not interfering with witnesses until the matter is finalised.

Prosecutor Miss Sharon Mashavira alleged that sometime in September 2008, Kucherera mandated LPS Real Estate to sell his Borrowdale house. As a result, Pastor Chitsinde got interested in the house and paid the agreed purchase price of US$250 000 in full in the presence of an official from LPS Real Estate.

In February 2009, Pastor Chitsinde’s friend Ringostar Masakwa, who was then an employee of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, stored RBZ mechanisation equipment at the house for safekeeping.

The equipment was later confiscated by the Zimbabwe Anti-corruption Commission which claimed that it had been stolen by Masakwa.
During the recovery of the equipment, it is alleged that ZACC also seized various documents from the house, which included the title deeds for the house.

Masakwa, the court heard, fled the country to avoid prosecution and was still on the run.
Sometime this year, Kucherera who was fully aware that Pastor Chitsinde bought the house, approached the registrar of deeds and applied for replacement of the title deeds for the property.

He misrepresented that he had lost the original title deeds and he was given a replacement copy.
According to the State, Kucherera used the replacement copy to make an application at the High Court purportedly to evict Masakwa from the property when in actual fact he was aware that he had sold the house to the complainant and also that Masakwa was on the run.

As a result, a default judgment was granted in Kucherera’s favour by the High Court leading to Pastor Chitsinde’s  eviction from the property, the court heard.

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