Father in court over forged school transfer letter

Michael Mashiri

A 36-year-old man, Benson Ayani has been accused of allegedly attempting to forge a document to facilitate the transfer of his children to another school.

Ayani of Highlands and his accomplice, Munashe Fungai, 43, of Kuwadzana Extension, appeared at the Harare Magistrates' Courts charged with forgery.

Prosecuting, Takudzwa Jambawu, alleges that on June 27, 2024, at around 0900 hours at Registrar of Births and Deaths Market Square offices, the informant was at his workplace when he was approached by Ayani who told him that he wanted to register births of his children a boy and a girl since he wanted to transfer them to a new school in Chisipite from Arnoldine Primary School which is in Headlands.

The informant told Ayani that he was supposed to bring a hard copy letter from their previous school to confirm that they were former students, not a soft copy, which he had.

After a couple of hours, he went with a hard copy of a letter from the headmaster to the informant and produced it, but the informant suspected that it was fake since he got the letter in such a short time.

He inspected the paper and noticed that it was a forged document.

After being puzzled by the informant, he admitted that he got the forged document from Fungai leading to their arrest.

They were ordered to deposit US$50 and will appear in court on July 4, pending the finalisation of investigations.