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Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter

Businessman Farai Jere and two Zesa employees, who were arrested over a US$3 million tender for the supply of electrical meters, have been granted $20 000 bail each pending trial, with the High Court querying the actual charges used for the original remand.

Jere, Leonard Chisina and Freeman Chikonzo were granted bail by the High Court on appeal after being denied by Harare magistrates’ court last week.

Ruling on the bail appeal yesterday, Justice Pisirayi Kwenda could not find compelling reasons to justify the continued incarceration of the three in view of whether the allegations they face actually constituted an offence or where just falsehoods told to Zesa.

The judge did not hide his frustration over the manner the prosecution framed and brought the charges, which he said leaved a lot to be desired and reminded the prosecutors to take the High Court seriously.

The judge queried the prosecution on whether the allegations Jere is facing disclosed any criminal offence. The judge wanted to know what offence did Jere commit when he was arrested and in particular whether the allegations the prosecution relied on constituted the offence of fraud.

It emerged during the hearing that when Jere took four Zesa employees to the United Kingdom where he wanted to show them the meters he had in that country, not the factory that manufacture the electricity meters. Though the four Zesa employees had gone on the visit for factory inspection tests, they chose to deliberately lie to their employer over their due diligence trip.

“It is certainly very wrong, if it is correct and later proved that the engineers who were dispatched to UK to do due diligence lied,” said Justice Kwenda asking the prosecution to define the charges Jere was facing in view of the circumstances of the case.

The question proved to be a great challenge for the State, which only went to say, “there is an element of fraud” in the matter, but without certainty. The judge said the Zesa engineers, after being shown the meters, were asked to sign for them if they were satisfied and they agreed. “If the Zesa engineers misrepresented to their own employer , that is something else,” said Justice Kwenda.

He censured the prosecution for bringing “dirty” issues to the higher court, saying judges could end up writing wrong judgments if they did not analyse prosecution cases.

“This is the High Court. If you bring cases like this we end up writing wrong judgments . . . a serious misconduct. It is clearly wrong to bring before judges issues which have no connection with the charges,” said Justice Kwenda.

The judge felt pity for prosecutor Mr Edmore Makoto, who was dealing with the matter at the appeal stage, appreciating his effort to deal with a case already bungled in the lower court.

Advocate Uriri instructed by Jere’s lawyer Mr Tinofara Hove successfully demonstrated the trial magistrate’s misdirection on the facts and law, which the judge upheld.

Jere and his co-accused had been denied bail on the grounds that they were a flight risk and may be tempted to abscond trial in view of the gravity of the alleged crime and that he was internationally connected.

The State alleges that Jere misrepresented to Zesa’s distribution subsidiary, ZETDC, that his meter supplier — Secure Meters Private Limited — had a manufacturing plant for smart meters in the United Kingdom, yet there was none.

Zesa wanted to inspect the factory where the meters were made.

On 24 November 2018, Chisina and two fellow engineers, Mapipi and Tshuma, all from ZETDC, and a representative from Zesa’s IT department, named Chikonzo, accompanied Jere to Britain to carry out the factory acceptance test.

They visited a warehouse, not a factory it is alleged, and Jere allegedly produced a fake factory acceptance test visit report to the effect that the smart meters and head end system met the standards required by ZETDC.

Chisina and Chikonzo agreed while Mapipi and Tshuma expressed reservations on the signing of the document.

Jere then arranged a shipment of the smart meters, which were delivered to ZETDC and a payment of US$3 566 878 was made.