THE trial of Harare businessman Clark Clever Makoni and his wife Beverly Aisha Ndonda Makoni, who face a charge of illegally changing the directorship of a company they were managing, continued yesterday with a Companies Registry Office representative denying any knowledge of the alleged fraudulent activities.
The couple faces a charge of fraudulently changing the directorship of Valley Lodges linked to former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Gideon Gono.
The State yesterday called a Companies Registry representative, Lindsay Musukutwa, to testify after presenting a Certificate of Incorporation and a CR14 as evidence.
Musukutwa denied the existence of any forged records when questioned by the couple’s lawyer, Admire Rubaya.
This was after Rubaya grilled Musukutwa about whether she had not been given any document indicating an attempt by Makoni and his wife to change the directorship of Valley Lodge.
Presiding magistrate Stanford Mambanje postponed the matter to December 17 for trial continuation.
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Last week, another witness, George Mashonganyika, said Gono should be summoned to court to clarify some issues.
During cross-examination, Mashonganyika admitted that Gono would need to come to court to provide key evidence for the case to advance.
According to the State, in July 2017, the complainant engaged the services of the accused persons to manage Valley Lodge, among other properties.
On August 10, 2017, the couple allegedly forged a CR14 form in which Clark appointed himself director and company secretary and Beverly as his deputy.
Armed with the forged CR14 form, the two are said to have approached ZB Bank Mutare, Valley Lodge’s bank.
They misrepresented to the bank that they were the new shareholders and wanted to change signatories to bank accounts.
The State said the couple then fraudulently took over the complainant’s company and gained access to its bank accounts and stole money.
The alleged prejudice is ZWL$137 736 500.