Harare City Council Official Jailed 3 Years For Stealing Millions In Fraud Scheme

Harare city council official sentenced to 3 years for $21 million fraud

A former Harare City Council official has been sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of masterminding a fraud scheme that saw over ZWL$21 million siphoned from municipal accounts between 2022 and 2023.

Tafadzwa Dzapasi, who was employed as a Debtors Control Officer, was found guilty by the Harare Magistrates’ Court for orchestrating a sophisticated scam that involved manipulating dormant council accounts and suspense funds to divert large sums of public money for personal gain.

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Council duped by internal fraud

According to the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe (NPAZ), Dzapasi exploited loopholes in the council’s accounting systems over a period spanning November 2022 to May 2023.

“The Harare Magistrates’ Court has sentenced Tafadzwa Dzapasi, a former Debtors Control Officer at the City of Harare, to an effective 3 years imprisonment after he was found guilty of fraud that resulted in losses amounting to millions of Zimbabwean dollars,”
the NPAZ stated.

The fraud centred on dormant accounts — accounts with unused but available credit balances — and suspense accounts, which hold temporarily receipted funds where client reference information is incomplete. Dzapasi transferred funds from these accounts to those with outstanding arrears, creating a false appearance that payments had been made.

One of the most telling instances occurred on 20 December 2022, when Dzapasi intercepted a suspense account containing legitimate payments from clients. He redirected ZWL$1,393,875.35 and masked the transaction as a routine banking deposit.

ZWL$21 million lost in just two months

The audit report revealed that the City of Harare suffered staggering losses in early 2023:

In February 2023, the council was defrauded of ZWL$7,414,378.27.
The following month, in March 2023, losses escalated to ZWL$12,166,651.76.

Combined with earlier incidents, the total prejudice to council amounted to more than ZWL$21 million.

However, it remains difficult to establish a precise USD or Rand equivalent of the losses. This is due to the volatile exchange rate of the Zimbabwean dollar, which has fluctuated significantly in recent years because of inflation, monetary policy changes, and other economic factors.

“He manipulated dormant accounts and transitory funds to misrepresent payments. His actions deceived the City of Harare into believing that debtors had settled their payments, while in reality, no money had been received,”
the NPAZ said.

Audit triggered by red flags

The fraud only came to light after an internal audit flagged inconsistencies in the records. Suspicious movements in dormant and suspense accounts prompted investigators to dig deeper.