Former Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) board member, Brighton Malandule, was arrested by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission last week for alleged abuse of public funds.
According to H-Metro, Malandule, who is the Tsholotsho Rural District Council executive finance officer, was arrested for allegedly abusing public funds at the local authority.
Malandule was a member of the ZIFA board, led by Felton Kamambo, which was dismissed from office by the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) in November 2021 on a litany of allegations including abuse of office.
Malandule is being charged together with Tsholotsho Rural District Council chief executive, Nkululeko Sibanda.
The two officials were arrested last Thursday and appeared before Tsholotsho magistrate Thomas Gurejena on Saturday.
They were each remanded out of custody to 05 January on $1.2 million bail.
According to court papers, Malandule and Sibanda are both responsible for procuring goods and services for the council and its arms.
The duo allegedly awarded a borehole drilling contract to Makhado Marketing without following the proper procedures and approval of the council.
Malandule, who had the duty to monitor the use of resources in pursuit of defined objectives of the Council, to ensure all expenditures were as per budget and exercising due diligence before effecting payments to avoid financial losses to the Council, allegedly acted contrary and inconsistent with his duties as the Treasurer of Tsholotsho RDC by effecting payments to Makhado Marketing without exercising due diligence. Read the court papers:
By so doing, the accused persons showed favour to Makhado Marketing by hand-picking it without going to tender or using the request for quotation method of procurement and paying full cost price of borehole surveying, siting, drilling and installation of cylinder complete with foot valves and bush pumps well knowing that Makhado Marketing had not yet performed its contractual obligations thereby putting Tsholotsho RDC on high risk of unnecessary sunk costs.
According to prosecutors, Sibanda was the one who single-handedly gave Makhado Marketing the contract.
Criminal abuse of office – or criminal abuse of duty as a public officer, to give the crime its proper name – is defined in section 174 (1) of the Criminal Law Code as follows:
If a public officer, in the exercise of his or her functions as such, intentionally— (a) does anything that is contrary to or inconsistent with his or her duty as a public officer; or (b) omits to do anything which it is his or her duty as a public officer to do; for the purpose of showing favour or disfavour to any person, he or she shall be guilty of criminal abuse of duty as a public officer…
A person is guilty of this crime if they do something inconsistent with their official duty or fail to carry out an official duty, to give an advantage or benefit to someone else or prejudice someone else.
In the year 2021, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) received 1 354 reports, out of which 51% (697) were related to criminal abuse of duty. Fraud cases came second at 31%.
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