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Conrad Mupesa Mashonaland West Bureau

A Karoi man who misrepresented to the Agricultural Rural Development Authority (ARDA) that he owned a farm with irrigation equipment to receive farming inputs has been nabbed by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC).

The man, Simbarashe Changachimire (46) was arraigned before the courts yesterday on allegations of fraud after he swindled (ARDA) of farming inputs purporting that he owned a farm with irrigation infrastructure.

According to ZACC, Changachimire (46), a Karoi-based farmer, allegedly misrepresented to ARDA that he was the owner of Temple Combe Farm, resulting in him receiving inputs amounting to 20 tonnes of Compound D fertiliser, 625 kgs seed maize and chemicals.

After receiving the inputs, he reportedly traded the 20 tonnes of Compound D fertiliser and 125 kgs of seed maize for 30 tonnes of wheat with one Henk Terblanche, a farmer at Kent Farm.

“511 bags of fertiliser were recovered at Kent Farm,” he said.

Changachimire appeared at Provincial Magistrate Courts in Chinhoyi yesterday and was remanded in custody to today for a bail hearing.

ARDA is implementing the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development’s Joint Venture Farming Programme aimed at contracting 100 000 hectares to farmers for the summer crops for the 2023/2024 farming season.