A prominent Harare lawyer and his secretary have been remanded in custody after appearing in court over allegations that more than US$1.3 million belonging to a property trust was diverted for personal use and channelled into the purchase of a mine.
Joseph Mandizha, 58, the owner of Mandizha and Company Legal Practitioners, and his secretary, Ranganayi Tigere, appeared before Harare magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa facing charges of theft of trust property and money laundering.
The pair were remanded in custody to Monday for a bail application. They spent the weekend behind bars as the State laid out allegations involving a long-running residential development project in Tynwald, Harare.
The complainant is a trustee of the Martmon Sibindi Trust, which owns Lot 1 of Lot 14 of Tynwald, a 16.1883-hectare piece of land held under deed of transfer number 5356/88.
The trust decided in 2017 to subdivide the land into residential stands and appointed Mandizha’s law firm to handle the legal and financial side of the project. His duties included preparing a draft agreement of sale, dealing with prospective buyers and their due-diligence enquiries, and accounting to the trust for money flowing into and out of the project.
Mandizha, who is also a majority shareholder in Heaven on Earth Real Estate, recommended that the trust use his company to market the stands. Under the arrangement, Heaven on Earth would find buyers while Mandizha’s law firm received payments on behalf of the trust.
The money was meant to be paid in cash to the law firm and then distributed according to the agreement. Five per cent of the money received was to go to Heaven on Earth as commission. A further 47.5 per cent was to be paid to the real estate company as development costs for the stands, with Divine Homes (Private) Limited carrying out the development work on behalf of the trust. The remaining 47.5 per cent was to be remitted to the trust through Peter Makoni.
The State alleges that the arrangement began to unravel in January 2023, when Mandizha and Tigere allegedly started keeping part of the money collected from clients instead of passing it on as required. The funds were allegedly converted to their own use while they continued to deal with payments from buyers.
Prosecutors further allege that the pair tried to conceal the missing money through the use of two receipt books. Mandizha allegedly instructed Tigere to write one amount in an original receipt book and a different amount in a dummy book, creating a mismatch between what clients paid and what was recorded for the trust.
The alleged fraud came to light in March this year after the trustee discovered irregularities in the project’s cash inflows and outflows. The trust then engaged MNK Audit to examine the accounts.
The audit allegedly found that US$1,333,342 had been converted to the personal use of the accused. The State further alleges that Mandizha used the proceeds to buy a mine in Arcturus, in Mashonaland East, in an attempt to disguise the source of the money. No recovery had been made by the time of the court appearance.
The size of the amount involved places the case among the most serious recent trust-property matters linked to Zimbabwe’s legal profession. Trust accounts are used to hold money belonging to clients or other parties during transactions, including property deals. Lawyers handling such funds are expected to keep them separate from personal and business money and to account for every payment.
The Mandizha case follows a series of prosecutions in which lawyers have been accused or convicted of taking money entrusted to them during property transactions.
Another Harare lawyer, Simbarashe Tsaurai, was convicted after stealing US$35,000 deposited by clients into a legal firm’s trust fund. He was sentenced to one and a half years in prison. The case formed part of a wider period of scrutiny of trust accounts and the handling of client money by legal practitioners.
The issue has also resulted in disciplinary action outside the criminal courts. Lawman Chimuriwo, a prominent Harare lawyer, was deregistered after he was found to have misappropriated more than US$100,000 in trust property from a property transaction.
In 2022, retired Harare attorney Phineas Ngarava was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of embezzling about US$13,500 in trust funds. Ten months of the sentence were ordered to be served, with the balance suspended on condition of good behaviour. The money came from the proceeds of a property sale in Highfield, Harare, and had been held under an agreement with a client.
A separate case involving a Zimbabwean lawyer has also brought renewed attention to the risks surrounding compensation and trust funds across the region. Precious Muleya, director of Precious Muleya Attorneys, was arrested in September at OR Tambo International Airport in South Africa in connection with allegations involving Road Accident Fund claims.
Investigators said the matter involved claims submitted on behalf of about 28 people between 2011 and 2024. More than R5.2 million in actual financial prejudice had been identified, while the possible loss in the wider investigation was put above R20 million. The allegations included claims that compensation money paid for clients was retained instead of being transferred to the intended beneficiaries.
Back in Harare, the immediate focus is on Mandizha and Tigere’s bail hearing. The prosecution is expected to present more details about the trust’s accounts, the audit findings, the receipt books and the alleged purchase of the Arcturus mine as the case moves forward.
For the Martmon Sibindi Trust, the alleged loss concerns money collected from home-seekers during a project intended to turn farmland into residential stands. For the legal profession, the case adds another major trust-fund prosecution to a growing list of matters involving client money, property transactions and the responsibilities of lawyers entrusted with other people’s funds.