Within 3 days of Emmerson Mnangagwa striking a deal with the Belarusian government for Zupco buses on the 17th January 2019, money had already started disappearing, an exclusive ZimEye investigation reveals.
The details are laid bare showing looting that could perhaps have been avoided had ZUPCO bosses not stopped a task team comprising members of the military, CIO, and police doing their job back in January last year when government decided to designate ZUPCO as a special strategic company for the purpose of lowering growing public angers, through providing cheap transport.
Fearing rising protests, Mnangagwa had launched the “noble” venture of purchasing hundreds of buses in order to lower the burden of transport costs. This would have worked well and the quality of life improved.
But the multi million dollar investment is now set for another disappointment, as an audit seen by ZimEye reveals more than $22,000 was found missing, the looting beginning within 72 hours of the Belarus meeting. Company policies on the timing of banking revenue receipts were violated.
At the centre of Zupco’s ongoings is the collusion of two directors:
- The Acting CEO – [substantive post is the Financial Director], Mr Everisto Madangwa.
- The Marketing (Acting Divisions Operstions Manager) Tito Chirau … he is Madangwa’s enforcer of corruption.
Chirau has gained the reputation of being the ZUPCO Tagwirei, as it were, – a man who has taken over operations, marketing, and accounting, and the 5th department he is now in charge of is the HR department. He constructs what he calls a non renewal list, conductors are randomly lined up for dismissal and he fires them.
There is a task force team in ZUPCO appointed by the minister of Defence through the ministry of Local government. The taskforce oversees the safety of buses, and it comprises, the ZDF, the police, and the CIO.
The head of the taskforce delegation is Col Richard Mapanda, and he is deputised by Ass Comm Moyo, and DIO Ndabezihle Ndoro. This team was generally effective in the first few weeks of 2019, but from around April time they have been rendered inept.
The chairman of ZUPCO, Dr Talon Garikai, is the Vice Chancellor of Harare Institute Of Technology. Everything happening in ZUPCO is now being run from the HIT.
The tap card system came from HIT. Stationery supplies are coming HIT. The booking of Intercity buses system, is being run by the HIT, which means that ZUPCO is now literally operating from HIT.
The audit reveals in a summary how: the Accountant and Cashier were invited to explain and justify the departure from the company’s policy regarding the timing of banking revenue receipts.
In their written responses, they attributed this departure to the temporary shift of the cash office from Willowvale Depot to Belvedere Depot as well as transport problems to transmit the cash receipts to the bank. It was however established that the temporary shift took place on 20 January 2019.
Willowvale cash office resumed its operations on 12 February 2019. Their explanation does not hold water as the delays in banking continued beyond the 12 February 2019 when CIT – cash in transit services were available to the Depot.
When a decision was passed to bring in the police and the anti-corruption commission, ZACC, to investigate, an accountant was then used to make some diversionary responses, on the 15th October 2019.
Further to all this, there was last year a scandal of shortfalls on scan machines, which resulted in machine number 8 which leaked thousands to an unknown receiving account.
This happened in October 2019. There is machine number 8 which was stationed at Willowvale Depot, it caused shortages running up to the thousands.
That machine was tracked by IT, it was found the machine was not sending money to accounts, it was sending somewhere else. When the audit was being conducted Chirau blocked that investigations.
There is a machine which was discovered inside a toilet, and was found without an identification number, and no sim car in it, but found inside a toilet.
The identification number and the sim card would have made it easy to track the operator and the account number where the money is being routed.
Zupco has since fired its Risk, & Audit Control Manager, a Mr Chimbanda in the first week of February. Mr Chimbanda who had been appointed Risk Manager on the 1st August 2019, was suddenly fired within 6 months just before commencing a human resources audit.
Impeccable sources revealed to ZimEye, he had at the time attempted to do an indepth risk audit, following several scandals in the human resources department, that have seen unqualified drivers being employed. This comes amid the rising spate of accidents.
The CEO and the Operations Division blocked the audit and rushed to remove Chimbanda from the post.
While efforts to get a comment from the de-robed Risk Manager were fruitless, ZimEye managed to get a hold of the Operations Director, Mr Tito Chirau briefly spoke to ZimEye.
He at first denied the existence of the audit report, saying the only persons who can be titled auditors are external auditors. He also said the Risk &Audit Control Department does not conduct audits.
Towards the end of the interview, he once again discredited the audit report this time however acknowledging its existence saying it was truly prepared by the Risk Department. Will this money which leaked, the $22,000 be returned?, was the question. He replied saying,
“Eeeeh, please speak to the CEO,” he said.
He continued saying, “ you can call the CEO and speak to him.”
But you are the Operations Director Mr Chirau, he was asked, and he went on to reply saying:
“What I can tell you is that there is nothing factual from all that you are saying, but anyway, I will just refer you to the CEO.”
The audit is not factual?, he was asked.
He said, “Yes it’s not factual, everything that you are saying it’s people who don’t want to see ZUPCO succeeding, and the funny thing is you are just being verbose and loud, but when we speak about numbers, numbers don’t lie.
I can tell you right now that all those things that you are speaking it’s just people who are trying to smear ZUPCO for their nefarious means. ZUPCO is one of the most successful government initiatives and a lot of people don’t like it…..