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Prosper Dembedza Herald Correspondent

Harare magistrate Mr Stanford Mambanje has convicted a former finance manager at stockbroking firm Morgan & Co after he found him guilty of duping his employer of more than $53 million which was supposed to be remitted to various Government departments before he resigned in January 2022.

In convicting Kudakwashe Saimon Vukomba, Mr Mambanje said the State managed to prove a prima facie case against Vukomba.

Vukomba deposited some of the money into his personal and friends’ bank accounts.

The court heard that he transferred the money, which was supposed to be deposited into Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra), Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) and the National Social Security Authority (NSSA).

Morgan & Co is being represented by its managing director David Muchengi.

According to the State, Vukomba’s duties included compiling, effecting statutory payments, reconciling and supervise junior clerks.

Sometime in February, Morgan & Co received an email from Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe saying that they were in arrears.

This prompted Morgan & Co to send some proof of payments to the Security and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe showing that they were paying and could not be in arrears. The Securities and Exchange Commission then disowned the said proof of payments saying that the ZB Bank account number on the proof of payments did not belong to them.

Morgan & Co undertook internal investigations and discovered that ZB account numbers of all proof of payments did not belong to the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe and instead belonged to Vukomba, his friends Theophilus Mapfurira, Rutendo Choruwa and Prince Mupangavanhu.

Initial investigations established that between February 28 and November 23, 2022, Vukomba raised requisition invoices purporting to make payments to ZIMRA, NSSA, Zimdef and the Security Exchange Commission.

Vukomba would take the requisition invoices to the authorised signatories where they would be duly signed.

After being signed, Vukomba would then transfer money signed for to individual bank accounts belonging to his friends and his personal account.

Vukomba transferred $13 080 430,93 into his personal ZB account, $10 641 858,83 to Prince Mupangavanhu ZB account, $26 059 918,41 to Rutendo Choruwa ZB account and $1 889 979,86 to Theophilus Mapfurira ZB account.

Through his actions, Vukomba defrauded his former employer of $53 129 574,70.