Harare provincial magistrate Mrs Esthere Chivasa has granted $10 000 bail to Allied Timber Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd’s acting chief executive, Remigio Nenzou who is facing allegations of hand-picking a Germany company to supply a sawmill machine without following due tender procedure.
As part of his bail his conditions, Nenzou was ordered to report once every month at ZACC, not to interfere with witnesses and to continue residing at his given address.
Mrs Chivasa dismissed the two reasons upon which the State was relying on to deny the accused bail which were; likelihood to interfere with witnesses and absconding.
In her ruling, she said the court was surprised at how the accused is said to have interfered with witnesses in January 2019 when the allegations before the court are said to have arisen in October 2019. “Nothing cogent has been placed before the court to establish interference of the risk,” she said.
Mrs Chivasa further stated that nothing was placed before the court to establish a strong case.
“To the contrary, the case against the accused as presented taking into account the exhibits tendered, appears weak,” she ruled.
The court heard that on October 30, 2019, Nenzou as the chief executive for Allied Timber Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd verbally instructed his procurement officer Innocent Shenje to originate a letter for his signature addressed to the chief executive for Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) Mr Nyasha Chizu.
The letter was requesting Allied Timbers to be exempted from following the procurement procedures when procuring a sawmill machine from a Germany company, MS-Maschinenbau-GmbH (Pvt) Ltd, for a total price of US$1 128 218,25.
It is alleged that on November 15, 2019, Mr Chizu turned down the request made by Nenzou and advised him to select the most appropriate method of procurement in line with section 30 of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act.
The court heard that in February this year, Nenzou showed favour to the Germany company after intentionally ignoring the advice given by Mr Chizu.
He allegedly travelled to Germany to do the due diligence and expedite the procurement of the sawmill.
It is the State’s case that investigations established that at the time of Nenzou’s visit to Germany, no procurement procedures had been followed to choose MS-Maschinenbau-GmbH (Pvt) Ltd to supply a sawmill machine to Allied Timber Zimbabwe.
The court heard that Nenzou corruptly verbally instructed Mr Wilcort Dzuda, the chief finance officer, to make payment arrangements to MS-Maschinenbau-GmbH (Pvt) Ltd of US$1 848 220 for the supply of a sawmill machine.