Released convict tries to use bearer cheques

GONE for too long?

There were hilarious scenes on Harare road in Bulawayo when a recently pardoned prisoner attempted to board a bus using bearer cheques.

Bearer cheques were legal tender during the country's hyper inflation period between 2003- 2008.

Sources at the long distance pick-up point said the ex-convict was part of a group that had been released from Bulawayo Prison just a few hundred metres away. He was looking for transport to Rusape.

"I think he was trying to cheat us using that he had been behind bars for more than 10 years," said Dumiso Ncube, a tout.

Some ex convicts that were also hitch-hiking pleaded with motorists for free transport claiming that they didn't have money.

"They claimed to be stranded without money. We felt sorry for them as they moved up and down the highway," said Joseph Chirinda, another tout.

However, it turns out no one is released without transport money.

"We ensure by all means all prisoners are released and have money for transport. We do this by checking the money they were arrested in possession of and liaising with relatives and our donors. If a prisoner has no transport fare we keep them until they receive it," said ZPCS (Zimbabwe Prisons and Corrections Service) national spokesperson Elizabeth Banda.

ZPCS has so far released 4 546 prisoners countrywide and the process is still ongoing.  Next in line are those being released on medical grounds.