By Martin Muleya.
Mutare- Manicaland Anglican Bishop, Eric Ruwona who spent yesterday’s night at Mutare Central Police Station, has appeared today before senior magistrate Tendai Mahwe.
Ruwona is facing fraud charges as defined in Section 136 of the Criminal Codefication and Reform Act (Chapter 9:23).
He was represented by Ashelle Mutungura of Mutungura and Partners as well as Passmore Nyakureba and Kubaya of Maunga and Maanda Legal Practitioners.
The man of cloth was arrested by Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) team in the afternoon at the Diocesan premises and was detained at Mutare Central Police Station.
The State led by prosecutor Tirivanhu Mutyasira told the court that the accused person and his three accomplicea who are still at large hatched a plan to defraud Anglican Diocese of Manicaland thousands of United States dollars.
“Anglican Diocese of Manicaland is a group of Anglican churches dotted in Manicaland province and also comprises of different congregants that pledges their gifts in monetary and non-monetary form for the day to day development of the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland.
“In addition to different churches dotted around the province of Diocese of Manicaland it has six boarding schoolsa and several day schools that contribute 15 percent of fees collected to the church development levy account. The Anglican Diocese of Manicaland is guided by the church constitution and Canons of the Province of Central Africa established in 1996, in handling the public funds pledged by the church congregants.
“To achieve their plan, on 26 February 2016, the accused and his accomplices fraudulently applied for a loan of US $100 000 from Agribank Mutare branch in the name of Anglican Diocese of Mutare church, misrepresenting that they wanted to construct St. Catherine’s Girls’ High School in Rusape and to purchase vehicle for the Bishop.
“The accused person and his accomplices committed to Agribank to take the loan under a mortgage bond of a certain piece of land situated in Mutare District stand number 78 Mutare Township as collateral security without the knowledge of the Standing Committee and the church congregants. As a result of the misrepresentation the loan was approved and the accused took the money.
“On February 2016 the accused and his accomplices fraudulently applied for another lpan of US $350 000 from Agribank Mutare using the same collateral security without the knowledge of the Church Standing Committee, purporting they wanted to construct St. Catherine’s Girls’ High School and to purchase the vehicle of the Bishop. The loan was approved and the accused took the money.
“The accused person and his accomplices fraudulently took a bank overdraft of US$250 000 from Agribank Mutare, Anglican Diocese of Manicaland account without the knowledge of the Standing Committee and the church congregants.
“After the accused person and his accomplices fraudulently applied for a bank loan of a total value of US $700 000 misrepresenting that they wanted to construct St. Catherine’s Girls High school and to purchase a vehicle for the Bishop, they converted the loaned monies to their personal use and nothing was recovered,” read Mutyasira.
In responding to attitude of bail, Mutyasira vehemently opposed bail saying the accused person was facing a serious offence involving money of high value and is likely to be convicted.
That the State had a strong case against the accused as it had managed to avail bank statements and that the State was in possession of ‘doctored’ minutes dated 03 December 2015 where the accused changed the agenda of the meeting and put the agenda that the loan had been approved by the Standing Committee of the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland.
Drama then unfolded as the State invited a ZACC investigating officer Eric Chacha to substantiate their claims.
Chacha put did not mince his words during the cross examanation by the defense counsel as he asked the magistrate to have defense counsel Ashelle Mutungura recurse himself as he was also an accomplice in the matter.
Mutungura had to recurse himself and followed proceedings from the gallery.
In his ruling magistrate Tendai Mahwe said he found no compelling reasons to deny the clergyman bail.
“Accused person should deposit $15 000 rtgs to the clerk of court, report once a week at ZRP Mutare Central, continue residing at number 1 Oakroad Murambi until the matter is finalised and not to interfere with state witnesses,” he said.
Ruwona will be back in court on the 29th of this month for routine remand.
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