Yeukai Karengezeka — An accountant with Slice Distributors has been arraigned for defrauding his former employer of US$45 000.

Tinashe Zengenene (30) yesterday appeared before Harare magistrate Mr Dennis Mangosi charged with defrauding Slice Distributors (Pvt) Limited. He was admitted to US$100 bail and will return to court on March 19.

The State alleged that while Zengenene was Slice Distributors' financial accountant, his duties included authorisation of payments and reconciliation of daily payments.

In January this year, senior internal auditor Mr Paddington Mungate was doing daily routine checks verifying payments made to suppliers during the day at Slice Centre in Borrowdale, Harare.

He discovered that there were some pending payments 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.

During the same day, Mr Mungate engaged Zengenene who was responsible for paying and he requested a fortnight to clear all the pending transactions. However, Zengenene failed to clear some of the outstanding transactions.

The court heard that on February 1, Mr Mungate obtained statements from 10 suppliers and noted that some of the money that Zengenene signed for had not been received by the suppliers. An internal audit revealed that 10 companies were yet to be paid whereas the company had released US$45 146 to Zengenene to pay for the services.

It is suspected that he converted the money to personal use.

On February 9, Mr Mungate made a report to the police leading to Zengenene's arrest.