3 up for faking, authenticating qualifications

Michael Mashiri
Three people who were entangled in a Zimbabwe School Examinations Council fraud after creating fake qualifications and authenticating them have appeared in court.

Cindy Mutswatiwa, 29, of The Grange, Kundai Mutape, 39, of Craneborne and Malvern Nengomasha, 32, of New Marlborough were before magistrate Stanford Mambanje at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts accused of fraud.

The State, through prosecutor Tawanda Nyandoro, alleges that, in June 2022, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission arrested Molyn Mugodi for creating fake national identity cards which they were using to defraud pensioners of their lump sum pay-out funds.

After the arrest, ZACC investigation officers took away Mugodi's printer and a central processing unit which Mugodi used to create fake national identity cards and referred them to ZRP Cyber Forensic lab for examination and possible extraction of any suspected forged documents generated.

After the analysis by ZRP Cyber Forensic experts, several Zimsec Ordinary Level, Advanced Level and Tertiary institutions certificates were retrieved.

The team subsequently sent the certificates for authentication to Zimsec and tertiary institutions.

On the certificates that were sent to Zimsec, Mugodi’s one certificate was confirmed to be fake.

The investigations that were made showed that Mugodi had sat for three Zimsec Ordinary Level examinations in June 2012, November 2012 and November 2013 sessions in which Mugodi managed to pass three subjects, English Language, Commerce and Religious Studies with C grades.

The investigations also established that, sometime in 2020, Mutape, informally met Nengomasha and they agreed to work together where Mutape was going to bring fake Zimsec Ordinary Level and Advanced Level certificates for authentication at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Zimbabwe where Nengomasha would facilitate the authentication of the fake Zimsec certificates for a fee of US$10 for every certificate.

The investigations also showed that around January 2022, Mutswatiwa went to Mutape and paid her US$150 for her to facilitate the forging of an Ordinary Level certificate for her to use to get a Degree in Dentistry at the University of Donetsk in Ukraine.

Mutape then went to Mugodi who created a fake Ordinary Level certificate in which Mutswatiwa was purported to have sat for Zimsec Ordinary Level examinations, November 2013, and passed seven subjects, all with C grades.

Mugodi after forging the certificates in the name of Mutswatiwa handed them over to Mutape who made a copy and send them to Nengomasha for authentication process.

It was also revealed in the investigations that Mutape paid Nengomasha a facilitation fee of US$10 for him to facilitate the authentication of a fake Ordinary Level certificate for Mutape so that it looked genuine like those properly issued by Zimsec.

This was done to enable Mutape to pursue her Dentistry degree in Ukraine.

On May 4, 2023, Nengomasha approached one Collen Chiutsi, a Consulate Officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Zimbabwe and requested him to authenticate Mugodi's fake examination fake Zimsec Ordinary Level certificate.

On the same date Chiutsi authenticated the fake Ordinary Level certificate and gave it back to Nengomasha who conveyed them to Mutape who took them to Mutswatiwa.

On the day of arrest, a forged document of Ordinary Level certificate made by Mugodi together with a copy of authentication created by Chiutsi were recovered from Mutswatiwa.

They worked together with a common purpose and created a fake Ordinary Level certificate with seven Ordinary Level passes and had it aunthicated as a genuine Zimsec Ordinary Level certificate intending to be used by Mutswatiwa purporting that she had passed seven Ordinary Level subjects when in actual fact, she had three passes in three sitings.

As a result, Zimsec was prejudiced in its reputation and administration as the use of fake certificates had an impact on the rating of the Zimbabwean education system.
The three were granted ZWL$200 000 bail and will appear in court on June 28 for their routine remand.