Mukupe sentencing date announced

FORMER Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Terrence Mukupe, will now be sentenced on November 16 for evading paying duty on diesel they imported in 2017.

Mukupe and three of his accomplices, Same Kapisoriso, Joseph Taderera and Leonard Mudzuto, were on Wednesday found guilty of illegally importing 138 979 litres of diesel without paying duty.

The quartet submitted their mitigation yesterday before Justice Benjamin Chikowero, who will deliver his ruling next Thursday.

The State proved that on January 27, 2017, the quartet conspired to import the diesel, falsely documenting that it was intended for offloading in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The diesel was imported through the Forbes Border Post in Mutare. It was then offloaded and replaced with water in Zimbabwe.

The plot was discovered three days later when officials from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority intercepted the group at a checkpoint at Chirundu One Stop Border Post to verify the nature of the goods they were carrying.

The State alleges that the group’s actions cost the country at least US$55 591 in revenue then.

state media