Zimbabwean accountant in R17m theft from Joburg non-profit entity

A ZIMBABWEAN accountant is in trouble for the theft of over R17 million from his former employer, Johannesburg-based non-profit company Education and Training Unit (ETU), over a period of six years.

Details of the misappropriation emerged during the ETU's North Gauteng High Court application for the sequestration of its erstwhile accountant, Edward Mwanandimai.

Mwanandimai, who is a member of the UK-based Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, is accused by the non-profit company of misappropriating more than R17m, which was only uncovered after his resignation in May 2020.

He was employed by the ETU, which works on democracy and development in South Africa and Southern Africa, between July 2014 and May 2020, when the unit discovered that during his employment he had misappropriated large sums of money.

According to the ETU, Mwanandimai signed an acknowledgement of debt, admitting that he had stolen about R6.8m in September 2020 and repaid the money.

Later, the ETU discovered that the money stolen was more than what the accountant admitted in the acknowledgement of debt and that he owed just over R17.1m.

The high court also heard that he also admitted that the capital debt he owed was nearly R6.8m as well as that he had stolen more than what was recorded as the capital debt.

In total, after the reconciliation of the amounts owed by Mwanandimai and repayment of R7.1m, the debt now stood at slightly more than R11m.

Mwanandimai had access to the ETU's internet banking profile while being limited to viewing the bank account and neither being given access nor authorised to transact.

However, he was able to convince some of his former ETU colleagues to give him wider access to the internet banking profile to transact on the account and upload payments.

Court papers show that Mwanandimai stole the millions by replacing legitimate creditors' account numbers uploaded as payees (or beneficiaries) on the ETU's online banking platform with either his own personal account number or that of his company, Lopdale Services and Investments.

He did not change the recipient's but only the bank account number, which resulted in payments due to the ETU's legitimate creditors not being paid into creditors' bank accounts but into his or his company's bank accounts.

This is also how Mwanandimai managed to misappropriate money that should have been paid to the SA Revenue Service.

Mwanandimai also admitted owing nearly R1.8m in September 2021, and the following month he undertook to pay R11m over 72 months, but later the letters in which he made admissions were inadmissible in evidence as they were marked "without prejudice" by his attorney.

"In my view, the existence of a debt has not been disputed, let alone disputed on bona fide (genuine) and reasonable grounds. The dispute, if any, turns on the extent of the indebtedness," Judge Soraya Hassim ruled on October 28.

Judge Hassim issued a rule nisi (provisional court order) calling upon Mwanandimai and all interested parties to show cause, if any, next Friday why his estate should not be finally sequestrated.

According to the judge, Mwanandimai and interested parties must also show cause why the costs of the ETU's sequestration application and Mwanandimai's bid to strike out should not be costs in the sequestration.

Mwanandimai was unsuccessful in his application to strike out accusations by the ETU relating to how he stole the money, debt owed by a creditor, and the sequestration of his estate on the basis that they were scandalous, vexatious, defamatory to him, and irrelevant to an attempt to have him sequestrated.

The ETU did not respond to questions from the Sunday Independent on whether criminal charges were laid against Mwanandimai, who could not be reached for comment along with his legal representatives.