TINASHE MAKICHI
Zimbabwe’s Department of Deeds, Companies and Intellectual Property has been rocked by incidents of fraudulent activities meant to wrestle control of private companies without following proper procedure, Business Times has established.
Several fraudulent cases have been reported where some Deeds Office officials connive with some directors to wrestle control of companies.
One such case is that of an engineering company called Divvyman Enterprises Private Limited.
It is understood that Divvyman Enterprises shareholder, Eustache Orphanides, who held 80% of the company’s shareholding died on January 23, 2021.
Another director of the company Gilbert Kaguru is now accused of fraudulently filing documents on the same day Orphanides died, claiming a new director was appointed as well as company secretaries, called Network Secretarial Services.
The company secretaries, who existed during Orphanides tenure, were also said to have resigned on the same day.
However, the lawyers of Divvyman, Magoge Law, argued that it was impossible to come up with such a resolution without the input of the other director, who was in the intensive care unit, battling Covid-19 infection.
They now claim that it was done fraudulently to usurp the role of the company secretary.
Business Times can report that the case is now being investigated by the Special Anti-Corruption Unit in the Office of the President.
“The director could only be appointed by at least two directors of the company one of whom was Kaguru and the other, the late Orphanides who died in the early hours of January 23, 2021 in an institution where members of the public were not allowed access because he had contracted Covid-19.
And there was a letter from Divvyman Enterprise’s secretaries which confirmed that they had never resigned from their role as company secretaries,” read part of the official documents seen by Business Times.
The documents noted that there were strong allegations of collusion and connivance between the current directors together with officers from the Department of Deeds.
There are allegations that the filed CR6 was presented fraudulently and usurping the role of the company secretary.
Contacted for a comment Kaguru said he has been a director in the company since 2016 and there has been a plot by the company’s lawyers together with the company’s general manager to tarnish his image following the death of Orphanides.
He noted that the general manager of the company was already facing allegations of forging a will in order to take control of the company.
“This is a plot aimed to tarnish people’s images and this same general manager is facing allegations of forging a will and it has since been discovered after consulting handwriting experts that there was no consistency in the will. The issue is before the courts,” Kaguru told Business Times.
Experts said Network Secretarial Services, if indeed they exist and officers at the company registry office should not have filed a CR6 or CR14 when Divvyman Enterprise’s annual returns have not been filed or recorded.
Even if they had been filed, the company secretaries had not and have not resigned.
Analysts said the Divvyman case was the tip of an iceberg.
Several such cases, including fraudulent title deeds, go unreported, they said.
There are also indications that the department of deeds has been mismanaged and rocked with corruption allegations which continue to be levelled against its officers.
There are also various incidents where the officers have been implicated in the hiding of crucial directorship of companies in the event that there is a criminal investigation against certain company directors.
Recently there were reports of top Harare City Council (HCC) and some elements at the Deeds Office who were implicated in a suspected intricate web that has been illegally grabbing land measuring 27 000 hectares in Grange Township.
There are HCC officials who have been alleged to have been using a fake title deed to gain control of land at Grange Township.
The title deed Number 706/2015 used to claim ownership of the land belonged to Adam Mtisi Emam Trust.
Business Times is informed that this was done to gain control and ownership of the land without following procedure of which the title deed used belonged to another land in the same area.
The Deeds Office represented by Absolom Magwere, in a letter dated September 17, 2018, notified the Director of Works that the same land in question was occupied and already had a title under Deed Number 706/2015 to Adam Mtisi Emam Trust.
The issue then came to light when HCC Director of Works Isiah Chawatama, in a letter dated June 2, 2020, proposed the subdivision of the land in question only to be notified that the land was already occupied with a title deed in place.
This triggered an investigation by SACU which unearthed that the title deed for the land in question was fake and was only corruptly issued by officials in the Deeds Office to facilitate the grand theft of Council land in Grange.
