Former Energy Minister Samuel Undenge who is at the centre of the Wicknell Chivayo scandal, has been sentenced to four years in prison albeit for another matter.

Undenge was earlier on convicted of a charge of abuse of office and was thereafter sentenced to 4 years in prison by Harare magistrate Hosea Mujaya.

Magistrate Mujaya suspended a year and a half leaving the former minister to serve an effective two and half years in prison.

Undenge was convicted of the offence after the court determined that he truly authored a letter ordering power utility ZESA to engage the services of Oscar Pambuka and Psychology Maziwisa’s company, Fruitful Communications to do public relations work for the power utility.

The magistrate determined that this was despite the fact that Zesa has its own public relations department. As a result of the letter, Fruitful Communications later received a payment of $12 650 from Zesa.

Undenge once served in former President Robert Mugabe’s administration and is now the first former Mugabe minister to be convicted of a crime, somewhat to confirm what the military declared last year when they removed Mugabe in November 2017. Back then they said they were only targeting criminals around former president Robert Mugabe. To date however, only Undenge has been jailed.