Former Slice Distributors employee nabbed for frau...

Former Slice Distributors employee nabbed for fraud

Michael Mashiri

A former accountant of Slice Distributors Private Limited employee was arraigned before the courts charged with defrauding the company of more than US$45 000.

Tinashe Zengenene, 30, of Glen View 7 Extension, appeared before magistrate Dennis Mangosi charged with fraud.

He will appear in court on March 19.

The complainant in this matter is Slice Distributors Private Limited, represented by its senior auditor Paddington Mungate.

The State, through prosecutor Anesu Chirenje, alleges that in January 2024, Mungate was at work doing daily routine checks verifying payments made by the company to the suppliers at Slice Centre Borrowdale, Harare.

He then discovered that there were some pending payment transactions dating back to 2022.

This prompted him to check on what was happening as he knew that the company had released funds to the finance department to clear all the payments.

On the same day, Mungate engaged Zengenene, who was responsible for paying suppliers and Zengenene requested a fortnight to clear all the pending transactions.

After the requested fortnight period, Zengenene cleared some transactions and failed to clear some, which are still outstanding.

The State alleges that on February 1, 2024, Mungate then got hold of supplier statements from 10 of them and noted that some of the money that Zengenene signed for had not been received by the suppliers.

Preliminary internal audit exercise which was carried out by the company revealed that 10 companies are yet to be paid various amounts while the company had released US$45 146 to Zengenene to pay for the services rendered but instead, allegedly took the whole amount to his own use.

On February 9, Mungate made a report to the police, leading to the arrest of Zengenene.

As a result, the company lost US$45 146.