A woman from Harare, who was last week arraigned for allegedly attempting to disinherit two children of her late husband, the founder of the popular school, Mugure House Institute, from being beneficiaries of his estate, has been granted bail.
Chipo Mutandwa (39), who is charged with two counts of fraud and deliberately supplying false information to authorities, was granted US$100 bail.
She was remanded to September by Harare magistrate Mr Dennis Mangosi.
The State is alleging that Mutandwa was married as a second wife to the late Mr Daniel Chapinga who died on July 21, 2021. When Mr Chapinga passed on, he was survived by two wives -- Forcena Marongwe who died on April 19, 2024 and Mutandwa.
He had seven children including Ms Tatenda Yolanda Zvakanaka (23), who made the police complaint, and her sister Tafadzwa Belinda Zvakanaka born by his first wife.
The court heard that on August 12, 2021, Mutandwa secretly went to the Registrar General's Office to procure Mr Chapinga's death certificate without the knowledge of his children and close relatives.
It is further alleged that Mutandwa hired two other people, her mother Winnai Mutandwa and a young brother of the late Mr Chapinga, Mr Osward Chapinga, who is unable to write, to assist her in the fraud but she was not successful.
Consequently, the court heard, Mutandwa chased away the two elder children from home to live in the streets of Harare and denied them access to income from their father's estate.
Mutandwa then proceeded to fraudulently procure a fake valuation report on 26 May last year, with the assistance of an I. Muronzi (who is still on the run) and some conveyancing clerks at her lawyer's offices.
This is despite the fact that she was not an executor of the estate of the late Mr Chapinga, the two executors being Joseph Chapinga and Daniel Zvakanaka.
When Mr Chapinga died, he left behind a thriving and functioning Mugure House Institute for his children's inheritance, which Tatenda and Tafadzwa have been denied access to.
Meanwhile, Mutandwa also stopped paying fees for the two girls who were studying at University of Johannesburg in South Africa where they had been enrolled by their late father.
Due to outstanding fees of R26 448,29 and R 44 134,23, the two children had to run away from debt collectors in South Africa.
Mutandwa also went on further to fraudulently create a memorandum of understanding which she then also tampered with claiming 50 percent share of Mugure House Institute which was left by Mr Chapinga under a lease with the then Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement.
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The offence came to light when the two former executors, Joseph Chapinga and Daniel Zvakanaka, were removed and a new executor was appointed. The actual prejudice caused is yet to be established.
On the second charge, the State alleged that on 12 August 2021, when Mutandwa went to the Registrar General's Office at Market Square in Harare with her two accomplices, she drafted her affidavit with falsehoods.
She lied that Mr Chapinga had died on July 22, 2021, whereas he died on July 21, 2021. Far more seriously she also stated that he had left three children when there were seven.
After Mutandwa had presented the falsified affidavits, she was intercepted as the Registrar General's officials alerted Enipha Chapinga, sister of Mr Chapinga, who rushed to the scene and stopped the processing of the fake death certificate that she was about to procure.
