ETG Curechem Manager ‘Ashworth Chiringa’ Up for US$36 000 Fraud
Ashworth Chiringa, a manager at a nearby company, and Simbarashe Chitate, his accomplice, have appeared in court on charges of allegedly cheating their employer of US$36,000 by developing their own billing system.
Chiringa (45) and Chitate (21), who were accused of fraud, appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs. Ruth Moyo. They were each given a $200 bail amount and were held until March 19.
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ETG Curechem (Pvt) Ltd, the complaint, is being represented by Tinashe Rujuwa.
The financial department, which answers to Chiringa, handles payments for the explosives that ETG Curechem sells from its explosive storage magazine in Mutorashanga.
The prosecutor, Mr. Rufaro Chonzi, claimed that Chiringa was employed by ETG Curechem in June of last year as an explosive manager, with the primary responsibilities being the marketing and sales of explosives.
The business utilised SAP accounting systems, and the sales staff was responsible for following sales invoices to make sure that each client who bought explosives received an invoice that was duplicated manually and placed into the SAP system.
Additionally, the business had set up a credit facility where customers could apply and get it authorised before using credit for any kind of transaction.
According to what the court heard, Chiringa developed his own method in which he would produce manual bills to gather stock from the magazine master and then prevent the manual invoices from being recorded in the SAP system.
He continued by tearing the relevant sales invoices out of the invoice book.
After that, Chiringa and Chitate would gather the stocks, sell them, and keep the proceeds for themselves.
According to the allegations, Chiringa would also give the magazine master instructions to release some stock to his clients and work with Chitate to collect the money from them.
Additionally, Chiringa sold some of the stocks to his clients, collecting the money under the guise of credit purchases. After receiving money from these clients, Chiringa and others would divide it among themselves.
The offence was found after the firm followed up on payments made to clients who were purportedly on credit, only to find out that the consumers had really made cash purchases from Chiringa and Chitate.
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Chitate and two other people who are still at large collected the money.
This led to the firm carrying out some initial research.
They incurred prejudice of US$38 652, and nothing was recovered, when they learned that additional clients who were purported to have purchased on credit did not exist.
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