Anglican Bishop who “stole” US$700 000 from church freed on ZW$15k bail

Anglican Church Bishop, Eric Ruwona, who was arrested on Tuesday, appeared in court yesterday before a Mutare senior magistrate on fraud charges involving US$ 700 000 which he, together with three other accomplices, allegedly siphoned from church coffers.

Ruwona, who is denying the charges, was granted $15 000 bail and ordered to report once every Friday at Mutare Central Police Station.

The State led by prosecutor Tirivanhu Mutyasira told the court that the accused person and his three accomplicea who are still at large hatched a plan to defraud Anglican Diocese of Manicaland thousands of United States dollars.

 

“To achieve their plan, on 26 February 2016, the accused and his accomplices fraudulently applied for a loan of US $100 000 from Agribank Mutare branch in the name of Anglican Diocese of Mutare church, misrepresenting that they wanted to construct St. Catherine’s Girls’ High School in Rusape and to purchase vehicle for the Bishop.

“The accused person and his accomplices committed to Agribank to take the loan under a mortgage bond of a certain piece of land situated in Mutare District stand number 78 Mutare Township as collateral security without the knowledge of the Standing Committee and the church congregants. As a result of the misrepresentation the loan was approved and the accused took the money.

“On February 2016 the accused and his accomplices fraudulently applied for another lpan of US $350 000 from Agribank Mutare using the same collateral security without the knowledge of the Church Standing Committee, purporting they wanted to construct St. Catherine’s Girls’ High School and to purchase the vehicle of the Bishop. The loan was approved and the accused took the money.

“The accused person and his accomplices fraudulently took a bank overdraft of US$250 000 from Agribank Mutare, Anglican Diocese of Manicaland account without the knowledge of the Standing Committee and the church congregants.

“After the accused person and his accomplices fraudulently applied for a bank loan of a total value of US $700 000 misrepresenting that they wanted to construct St. Catherine’s Girls High school and to purchase a vehicle for the Bishop, they converted the loaned monies to their personal use and nothing was recovered,” read Mutyasira.

In his ruling magistrate Tendai Mahwe said he found no compelling reasons to deny the clergyman bail.

Ruwona will be back in court on the 29th of this month for routine remand.