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Midlands Reporter
A final year student nurse at Gweru Provincial Hospital has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after squandering $54 000 that was erroneously deposited into his account by the Central African Building Society (CABS) following technical glitches at the financial institution last year.

Kelvin Kutadza (24) appeared before Midlands provincial magistrate Mrs Phathekile Msipa yesterday facing 54 counts of theft.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Mrs Msipa suspended three years of his sentence on condition of good behaviour and a further three years on condition he restitutes the financial institution leaving him to serve effective six years.

In his defence, Kutadza said as a devoted Christian and a believer in miracles, he thought he had received miracle money when he saw his huge bank balance.

“When I checked my account and saw the money, I thought it was miracle money. I’m a Christian and thought that my prayers had been answered and I regret using the money.

“I’m a final year student nurse at Gweru Provincial Hospital and I am supposed to graduate on May 5. May the court pardon me,” said Kutadza.

It was the State case that between July and October last year, CABS was upgrading its IT system resulting in functional challenges in updating balances of accounts.

The system, the court heard, failed to record the correct figures each time a client transferred money from their CABS bank account to an EcoCash account or any other bank account using the electronic banking system.
It is alleged that the accused person discovered this anomaly and capitalised on it.

From July 5 to September 20 last year, Kutadza using his mobile phone, transferred various sums of money from CABS to his EcoCash number and to his MBCA savings account prejudicing CABS of $54 052,34.
He purchase a house in Mkoba 19 suburb for $32 460 and two non-runner vehicles for $5 500 and $5 000 respectively.
CABS later discovered the offence leading to Kutadza’s arrest.