Staff Reporter

A warrant of arrest that was recently issued against the Harare City Council (HCC) official director of works Zvenyika Chawatama has been canceled.

Harare City Council director of works Zvenyika Chawatama last week handed himself before the courts but denied he was evading arrest when he appeared before Harare magistrate Stanford Mambanje. A warrant of arrest was recently issued against Chawatama after he failed to appear before the same court on charges of malicious damage to property.

But the warrant of arrest against Chawatama was cancelled last week after he showed up in court. He told the court that he was not personally served with the summons, adding that it was served on his wife when he was in South Africa.

Chawatama said when his co-accused, suspended Town Clerk Hosiah Chisango, appeared in court on the summons, he was actually in South Africa and only came to know of the warrant on WhatsApp from a colleague.

The State represented by Michael Reza, told the court that it had no reason to oppose the cancellation of the warrant since the prosecutor responsible for the case was not around.

Chawatama accuses his enemies within the local authority of instigating his arrest because he held incriminating evidence against some of them. Several council bosses are on remand on corruption allegations. He claimed that he was being targeted by corrupt officials for his stance against corruption. Mambanje remanded him to May 9.

Controversial businessman Kenneth Raydon Sharpe has also been implicated in the same case, but has not appeared before the courts.

Sharpe’s confidante Tatiana Aleshina, in her opposing affidavit in another matter before the High Court, denied that her boss is at large.

“It is denied that the second respondent (Sharpe) is a fugitive from justice. There are no pending criminal proceedings against him to substantiate this libelous false accusation. There is no court order calling for his incarceration. The law enforcement agents in this country are not even looking for him,” said Aleshina

Chawatama, Sharpe, Chisango, Michael John Van Blerk, Mandla Ndebele, Samuel Nyabezi and Lasten Taonezvi were summoned by the State to appear before the court.

The criminal charges arose from an incident that occurred between July and October 2018 in which a show house worth US$300 000 constructed by land developer Georgios Katsimberis was destroyed.

The quartet of Chisango, Chawatama, Nyabezi and Taonezvi face criminal abuse of duty charges as public officers as defined in Section 174 of the criminal law after they allegedly acted inconsistent with their duties by showing disfavor to complainant Georgios Katsimberis.

Also summoned before the courts was Harare City Council represented by Chisango and Pokugara Properties Pvt Ltd represented by Van Blerk.