Bosses rip off NetOne

PHILLIMON MHLANGA 

Mobile network operator, NetOne, has suspended several top executives for financial irregularities amid revelations they turned the State-owned institution into a feeding trough by fleecing the organisation through abuse of the company’s payment system, it has emerged.

Investigations by Business Times over the past weeks revealed that NetOne has suspended chief operating officer Jeremiah Munembe, chief commercial officer Isaiah Nyangari, regional manager for Harare Shepherd Muyutu and regional manager for Southern region, Elma Dube, among many other executives.

It also emerged that several other middle managers and low-level staff were also part of the scam.

Business Times can report that the suspended executives violated the National Payment Systems Act as they allowed third parties to swipe using NetOne Point of sale (POS) machines for airtime.

Investigations revealed that the executives or their cronies at lower levels would get third parties to swipe for bulk NetOne airtime in Zimbabwe dollars. But, the third parties would pay in United States dollars at discounted rates with the executives or their cronies pocketing the United States dollars.

The investigations by this publication also revealed that some executives who would not be directly involved with the third parties, but would be roped in to authorise the illegal transactions.

After obtaining the required signatures from the suspended executives, the third parties would then claim their airtime from NetOne.

This was in clear violation of the National Payment System Act (Chapter 24: 23), which prohibits payment intermediation.

NetOne CEO, Raphel Mushanawani confirmed the scam but refused to shed more light on the scandal.

“The information you have is true. We are conducting an internal and external investigation,” Mushanawani told Business Times in a terse response.

He however, refused to reveal the identity of the external investigator.

But, Business Times investigations revealed that the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) was the external investigator.

Efforts to get a comment from the suspended executives were unsuccessful.

The National Payment System Act, under Subsection (3) states that no person other than (a) a participant in a recognised payment system, acting in accordance with the system’s constitution or rules or  (b) a person introduced by a participant in a recognised payment system in accordance with a provision of the system’s constitution or rules referred to in subparagraph (v) of paragraph (d) of subsection (3) of section three; shall, as a regular feature of his business, accept money or a payment instruction from any other person for the purpose  of making  a payment  on behalf of that other  person to  a  third person to whom the payment is due.

Any person who contravenes subsection (1) shall be guilty of an offence and liable or to imprisonment.”

Subsection 1 shall not apply to the People’s Own Savings Bank of Zimbabwe established by section three of the People’s Own Savings Bank Act (Chapter 24: 22) or a building society registered in terms of  the Building Societies Act (Chapter 24:02) or  a person  who is acting  as the duly appointed  agent of that person to whom the payment is due or the transmission of money payment instruction between companies  which are members of the same group of companies  or any persons exempted  by the Minister (of Finance and Economic Development) in terms of section 4.

After seeing suspicious movement of huge sums of funds involving the third parties and NetOne in clear violations of the Act, prompted FIU to launch an investigation.

It is understood that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development blacklisted some of the companies used in the scam last week. The blacklisted companies are Casha Designs (Pvt) Ltd, Re-net Technologies (Pvt) Ltd, Malfran Investments (Pvt) Ltd, Difflock Construction (Pvt) Ltd, Staman Investments (Pvt) Ltd, Guide Marketing (Pvt) Ltd, Nodship Investments Pvt Ltd, and Infinity Hire Pvt Ltd. Others include Nomalanga Marketing Pvt Ltd, Gift Mwayers t/a Mwayera Transport Pvt Ltd, Mukota Haulage and Buses, Ofixmore Marketing Pvt Ltd and Blecia Investments.

All efforts to get an official comment from FIU boss, Oliver Chiperesa were futile.