The ManicaPost
Abel Zhakata Senior Reporter
A LIBRARIAN with Mutare City Council is facing allegations of swindling the local authority of close to $10 000 in a well orchestrated scandal in which he pocketed various amounts as travel and subsistence allowance after coming up with fictitious international book fair functions.
Armed with fake invitation letters from organisations like the Zimbabwe International Book Fair and the International Federation of Library Association and Institutions (IFLAI), Darlington Mandowo was paid by council to attend the bogus workshops.
The rot came out recently after Town Clerk, Mr Joshua Maligwa, tasked the local authority’s audit department to do some checks at Turner Memorial Library.
Apart from the travelling allowances, Mandowo is also alleged to have pocketed thousands of dollars which was paid by the Chartered Institute of Secretaries (CIS) to the local authority for the use of the library as an examination centre.
Despite CIS using the library for its examination, the municipality got nothing.
Some of the payments were allegedly paid direct into Mandowo’s personal account with the CBZ in the form of Real Time Gross Payment Settlement transactions.
Mr Maligwa revealed on Tuesday that council had suspended Mandowo pending disciplinary hearing.
“Council coffers bled profusely because of fraudulent activities like these ones. We want to ensure that all criminal elements that are failing to make council tick are thrown out and made to pay back what they would have prejudiced us.
“When I assumed office some months ago I noted that all was not well at the library and hence the audit team was seconded to fish out the rot.
“This guy was selling council a dummy, lying that he was attending some workshops in Harare yet there were no such events on the ground.
“He got travelling and subsistence allowance and went away as if he was attending council business yet he doing own errands. This rot began last year during the tenure of the previous administration and was detected this year,” said Mr Maligwa.
He said council was committed to fighting crime within its rank and file in order to improve service delivery and win public confidence.
Last year, Mandowo duped the local authority of $4 199, 40 in travelling allowances after he produced fake ZIBF invitation letters for three workshops which were never there.
He also received $2 626, 80 for two trips that were purportedly being hosted by IAFAI, which were never held.
Council’s audit team got suspicious during investigations and contacted the two organisations to ascertain whether such events were held last year.
The auditors were shocked when they got correspondence to the effect that no such workshops were held.
“The two bodies told council that the invitation letters were counterfeits and that did not originate from their offices,” said Mr Maligwa.
On the CIS payments, Mandowo is alleged to have pocketed $1 300 which he either received as cash or in the form of RTGS transactions into his personal bank account each time the examination body used Turner Memorial Library as its examination writing centre.
He is also failing to account for 565 litres of fuel he received for generator use.
The audit team noted that despite the fact that power cuts were now minimal, Mandowo requested large quantities of fuel which he is now failing to account for.
