The State is yet to finalise its investigations against businessman and socialite Genius Ginimbi Kadungure who is facing charges of tax evasion.
This in complete negation of pleas made by former Home Affairs minister Obert Mpofu who warned police officers to avoid rushing to arrest citizens on “unfounded claims” before exhausting their investigations.
Kadungure has been in and out of the courts since November last year when he was arrested for the offense and the State had to deny him bail on the basis of having a ‘strong case’ against him and this saw the businessman spending a couple of days in remand prison away from his lavish lifestyle.
Close to six months down the line, he is yet to be given a trial date as investigations are still incomplete.
Because of his status, Kadungure afforded a lawyer who represented him at the higher court challenging the refusal of bail and this saw his release from remand prison.
Had he been financially incapacitated like most Zimbabweans, Kadungure could still be languishing in remand facilities like many other Zimbabweans whose issues are still on hold pending finalisation of investigations, but because he could afford it, he made an urgent chamber application to be released.
Even though he was released on bail, his movements are still restricted because of stringent bail conditions and the dark cloud of a pending matter against him still looms over his head.
This scenario becomes a mirror of the many other cases that are happening in the courts but do not make their way to the press due to blocked doors for members of the media by the prison officers.
The police in conjunction with the State seem to be arresting and harassing individuals to investigate instead of investigating to arrest, often times flooding the courts with so many pending issues.
The matter before hand has been postponed to June 14 before Harare Magistrate Barbra Mateko pending finalisation of investigations.
Harare Magistrate Barbra Mateko postponed the matter to June 14.
Allegations are that ZIMRA conducted lifestyle audits on socialites as the lives they were leading were not matching with their tax declarations.
Kadungure is facing charges of tax evasion in which the State is alleging that between February 2009 and May 2016, his company Piko Trading Private Limited misrepresented to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) that it made total sales of $2 777 678, inclusive of Value Added Tax, when in actual fact the company had made sales amounting to $9 092 951.
To that end, ZIMRA suffered a prejudice of $417 940.
Kadungure is also being accused of evading tax, with ZIMRA suffering a total prejudice of $3 468 949.
