Mimosa employees and management defraud the miner of over USD700000
Mimosa Mine might have lost millions of USD for the last 7 years through management and employees who were forging allowance forms, however, investigations by the company have only revealed that USD 709 000 was lost over the period.
Rudairo Dickson Mapuranga
According to sources who spoke to Mining Zimbabwe, for the past seven years, the management and employees of Mimosa mine have been involved in salary fixing, where they would claim allowances of over 70 employees, each employee getting salaries of up to USD300 which never went to the workers but into the pockets of the said management and employees.
“Since 2012 these individuals bypassed the payroll and salary department to get allowances for every employee of the Mine as they saw a loophole through complicity,” said our source.
According to our sources, one employee is understood to have brought back about USD 40 thousand which he had been keeping in his house before the scandal came to light.
“One employee from our department brought 40k USD to the management, the amount he said has been paid for the duration of the scam saying that he kept it because he knew this would be brought to light,” said our source.
According to our sources, although some individuals from the management were involved in the scam, no one has been suspended because the Mining firm wants to cover up the scandal.
“The alleged employees have been suspended and have handed over properties and other items to the company’s prior investigation from the CID, no management personnel has been suspended yet, but investigations have commenced and Mimosa wants to cover up,” our source said.
However, according to the company through one of its Executive Mr Fungai Makoni, the allegation of amounts going over a million is an exaggerated figure, the company did uncover the scam which started in 2015 and not in 2012 which involved 37 employees who stole over $700 000 over the period.
According to Makoni all the employees who were involved were dismissed and they agreed to return the money they stole.
“We uncovered a fraud involving employees who were forging acting allowance forms. The scam started in 2015 and involved 37 employees. The total amount involved is USD 709,000 over the period. A formal investigation was conducted which led to all 37 being dismissed in terms of our code of conduct. All those involved have agreed to reimburse the ill-gotten proceeds” said Makoni.
Makoni also said that the investigations carried by the company did not unearth the claims that senior management were involved in the scam.
“Our investigation did not reveal the involvement of senior managers. If it had, we certainly would have taken appropriate action” Makoni said.