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Nyore Madzianike Senior Court Reporter

An Econet Zimbabwe sales consultant, who was stationed at Joina City in Harare’s city centre, yesterday appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court on allegations of duping his employer of nearly $4 million after transacting in bulk rechargeable airtime.

Tatenda Simende (29) was not asked to plead to the charges when he appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Yeukai Dzuda, who remanded him in custody to today for bail hearing.

According to the State, Simende’s duties included receipting and dispatching bulk airtime to customers.

It is said that on June 20 last year, Simende processed a transaction of $1million, which was transferred by SpellBound Electronics as dealer payment to Econet.

The court heard that on July 8, 2021, Simende used the same proof of payment with the same reference number and attached it to his end of day report indicating that it was payment for another transaction under Econet cash account.

According to the State, Simende was supposed to attach a point of sale machine receipt or surrender cash for the transaction.

Allegations are that, using the fraudulent transaction, Simende bought physical recharge cards worth $1 million, defrauding his employer in the process.

On July 21 last year, Simende processed another receipt using proof of payment with a reference to another transaction.

 He then allegedly processed the receipt for physical Econet recharge cards worth $2 999 715.

On July 30, again last year, Simende allegedly used the same proof of payment made on July 21 and generated a receipt, which he allegedly fraudulently used to buy physical recharge cards worth $2 999 715.

Semende’s alleged misconduct came to light on January 28 this year when Econet conducted a bank reconciliation exercise, leading to his arrest.