By NetOne which had initially sued its ex CEO,Mr Reward Kangai for $2million has pressed more criminal charges of abuse office. In its latest submission the company has further revealed charges against financial prejudice suffered under the helm of the CEO,TechnoMag can exclusively reveal.
NetOne has raised the Firstel issue,which Kangai was amongst the directors, as a matter of deliberate negligence of the internal protocols, which in the case caused NetOne to Loose a total of$26.3 million, a case which now being treated as criminal not civil.
Part of the fresh report compiled by NetOne read the matter is now criminal abuse of office with the intention to fraud since Kangai and his management team were shareholders in Firstel.
“Firstel did not cede the debtor’s book as Zellco did according to the Service Provider agreement. The accounting officer at the time therefore deliberately prejudiced the company of 11 million. Because he did not follow the SP agreement which stipulated that the book should be collected if the SP failed to collect. This is a criminal charge to be dealt with by the police fraud squad.”
By not recognising and recording the individual Zellco debtor’s, the resultant prejudice is 15.3 million. By not collecting Firstel debtor’s book the prejudice is 11 million. This is real prejudice because most of the debtors are past 5 years and can no longer be executable. That makes total prejudice 15.3 + 11=26.3 million.
The initial counter- suit which NetOne had made was just after Kangai had reported the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption commission his matter, which was dropped when Minister Mandiwanzira was cleared and the commission is now investigating him for the fresh charges laid against him.
“We are making a report against Reward Kangai, who is our ex-managing director, for various offences which he committed while he was the managing director of the company together with Bopela Group, represented by Agrippa Masiyakurima,” Mutandiro’s letter to Zacc read.
The telecommunications giant alleges that Kangai “breached the law and committed criminal offences”, which included failure to declare his interest to the board on the acquisition of land for base station construction from his sister Joyce Kangai in contravention of section 186 (1) of the Companies Act.
The company also alleged that Kangai abused his position as a public officer when he showed “favour to certain base stations landlords by sanctioning and causing to irregularly and unlawfully process and to allow rentals in advance without authorisation and approval of the board, resulting in financial losses being incurred by the company”.
“Further in that, Kangai, as a public officer and in the exercise of his functions as such, intentionally, wrongfully and unlawfully showed favour to Bopela Group by approving a loan to Bopela Group in the sum of $80 000 without any security and approval of the board and which is outside the mandate of NetOne Cellular,” the documents read.
The Bopela issue is also being brought back into the limelight with a criminal angle,this time again.
On the Bopela tripartite agreement, the law is very clear. He signed on behalf of the company without board approval. Doesn’t matter who was paying Bopela. Bottom line is that if anything had gone wrong, the company stood exposed to the tune of 3.7 million. This is another criminal abuse of office among other relevant charges in line with the procurement
Kangai had initially responded that the first lawsuit of the $2 million was nothing much but a cover up effort to try and block payments towards his dues.but NetOne stated that amount, $1 804 953,45 is for him authorising payments for sites meant to be base stations despite these not being fully developed.
“The plantiff (NetOne) paid rentals for sites for base stations although the base stations were not developed. The rentals paid amounted to $1 752 283,45. The defendant was the one who authorised the payments,” the application read.
“In the period 2015 and 2016, the Bopela Group made changes in the base station construction sites. The costs incurred, which were paid by the plaintiff, amounted to $52 670.”
However, Kangai disputed the claims, blaming it on an inter-ministerial committee reducing the sites to 175 from an agreed 350 made with the financiers of the base stations, China Export and Import Bank.
“They (NetOne) are trying to avoid paying me my early release package. $1,919 million arises from base station site rentals. When we made the loan application from China Exim Bank, we envisaged 350 greenfield base station sites and China Exim Bank required base station site lease agreements to accompany the loan application. Later, the inter-ministerial committee reduced the sites to 175 and requested NetOne to use (its) own funds to develop the sites,” he said.
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