ETG Curechem loses over US$38k to employee

Michael Mashiri

ETG Curechem Private Limited explosives manager and his accomplice has been taken to court charged with defrauding the company more than US$38 000.

Ashworth Chiringa, 45 and Simbarashe Chitate, 21, both of Ashdawn Park, appeared before magistrate Ruth Moyo at the Harare Magistrates' Courts charged with fraud.

They were ordered to appear in court on March 19.

The complainant in this matter is ETG Curechem Private Limited, represented by Tinashe Rujuwa of Pension Road, Zimre Park, Ruwa.

The complainant has an explosive storage magazine in Mutorashanga. The complainant also sells explosives from that magazine and payments are done through the finance department. The magazine master in Mutorashanga reports to Chiringa.

The State, through prosecutor Rufaro Chonzi, alleges that in June 2023, Chiringa, was hired to the position of explosive manager of the complainant.

His duties, among others, included sales and marketing of explosives.

The complainant had created a system called SAP where sales invoices were to be followed by sales team to ensure every customer who purchased the explosives would be given an invoice and entered into the SAP system as a replica of the manual invoice.

The complainant had also put in place a credit facility system where clients would apply for the facility and have it approved first before making any purchase on credit.

It is alleged that Chiringa created his own system where he would generate manual invoices to collect stocks from the magazine master.

He would then cause the manual invoices not to be entered into the SAP system.

He then went on to tear off the invoices of such sales from the invoice book. The two accused would then collect the stocks, sell them and take the money for themselves.

Chiringa would allegedly instruct the magazine master to release some stock to his own customers and he would then team up with Chitate to collect the money from such customers and use it for his benefit.

The State alleges that Chiringa also sold some of the stocks to his own customers and took the money on the pretext that such customers had bought on credit.

Chitate and another outstanding accused would then collect money from such customers and share it among themselves.

The offence came to light when the complainant made a follow-up of the payment on the customers who were alleged to have bought on credit that is when it was discovered that the customers had bought using money from Chiringa and the money was collected by Chitate and two others who are still at large.

The complainant also discovered that other customers who allegedly bought on credit did not exist.

As a result of the two’s actions, the complainant lost a total of US$38 652.90.