| Susan Dube |
Livingstone Mtetwa
CHIPINGE- Town Secretary Susan Dube has
found herself in trouble with the law after she was recently arraigned before
the Magistrates Court facing two counts of criminal abuse office.
Chipinge regional magistrate Poterai Gwezhira granted Dube
$40 000 bail for both charges and ordered her not to interfere with witnesses,
report to Chipinge CID offices twice a week and not to report for work.
Dube is said to have used her position to violate the local
authority’s staff quota benefit scheme in which permanent employees of the
council are exempted from paying 60 percent of the total cost of residential
stands.
An audit report is said to have uncovered that Dube used her
position sometime last year to approve an application for exemption, under the
staff quota scheme, on a residential stand to one Jason Mhlanga who was not
permanently employed by the council.
Mhlanga is said to have been working for the local authority
as a graduate trainee hence should not have benefitted from the scheme. Mhlanga
acquired a stand number 4767 Kelvin Street measuring 1 000 square meters.
On the second charge, Dube stands accused of taking 74×32mm
and 26×25mm PVC pipes which were found at her Kenilworth farm.
The state led by Timothy Katsande alleges that on December
23, 2020, Dube applied for domestic water connection at her farm.
The application was approved on January 25, 2020, with
conditions that she buys her own water connection materials and pays labor costs.
After the approval, Dube took pipes valued at US$639 from
town council central stores offices which were then laid from Chipinge Prison
farm to her farm covering a distance of about 850 meters.
Some of the pipes were recovered at Dube’s farm which led to
her arrest.
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