Webster Shamu's wife testifies in court

Former Government minister Webster Shamu's wife Constance yesterday told the court that they discovered that their former employee at WEBCON High Glen Total Service Station had pocketed close to $40 000 after a final audit.

Mrs Shamu said this during the trial of Willis Nyamusanduka (39) who was employed as a supervisor at the service station.

Nyamusanduka is facing theft of trust property charges and he is being represented by Mr John Ndomene of Maposa Ndomene Maramba Legal Practitioners.

In her evidence, Mrs Shamu told the court that after reconciliation of books, she discovered that more than $38 000 was missing, which Nyamusanduka failed to account for.

In his defence outline, Nyamusanduka, through his lawyer, denied the allegations.

"Had accused stolen anything, this would have been discovered instantly not to wait for a whole year to nail charges against him," said Mr Ndomene in the defence outline.

"The accused shall state that procedure entailed that he collects cash from attendants. He would then deposit it and bring a deposit slip. He would also record the cash in a cash book and all these three documents would be referred to and relied on when reconciliations were done.

"Everything always balanced and any theft would have been instantly discovered."

During cross-examination, Mr Ndomene accused Mrs Shamu of failing to pay her debts since her business was going down and decided to place the burden on Nyamusanduka by causing his arrest. Mrs Shamu refuted the allegations, saying her businesses were doing well.

Prosecutor Mr Peter Kachirika alleged that between May 2014 and March 2015, Nyamusanduka received money from fuel attendants and under-banked the money which he converted to his own use.

The court heard that to cover the offence, Nyamusanduka allegedly destroyed all the bank deposit slips and computer-generated receipts, leaving behind the cash register in which he had endorsed the correct amounts banked.

It is the State's case that the offence only came to light on March 21 last year when Total Zimbabwe, the fuel supplier at WEBCON Total Service Station, advised the company that it was in arrears.

The company directors conducted a reconciliation of the cash register, bank deposit slips and computer-generated receipts against a bank printout of the account and discovered the anomaly.