NetOne saga deepens

The row between NetOne Cellular (NetOne) and suspended chief executive Reward Kangai’s allies has deepened with Bopela Group (Bopela) petitioning the Institute of Chartered Accountants Zimbabwe (ICAZ) to investigate the company’s chief financial officer Sibusisiwe Ndlovu.

This also comes as the “unwanted” executives coming under renewed fire over the Firstel Cellular (Firstel) empowerment and staff retention scheme, which was hammered out in 2005 — but has now taken a new meaning or course in terms in the context of factional fights within the State-owned firm.

Ndlovu, whose internal audit findings at NetOne have also implicated the likes of Bopela, leading to Kangai’s suspension, now stands accused of violating accounting principles on the basis that much of the detail of transactions she has flagged have already found themselves in the public domain.

“In conducting her ‘audits’… has not been straightforward and honest in her findings and conclusions released to the press by the board chairman on her behalf,” Agrippa Masiyakurima said in a letter to ICAZ.

This was after NetOne chairman Alex Marufu last month reiterated that Bopela was one of the “suppliers of interest” that they wanted audited under the guidance of the Auditor-General’s office following revelations that management had siphoned millions of dollars from the parastatal through suspicious procurement deals.

While Kangai’s team has been accused of sabotaging the mobile operator through incompetence, ineptitude and focussing solely on “technical aspects of the business” at the instigation of Ndlovu’s reports, the under-fire group has also accused the former Metbank and Afre Corporation executive of concealing material information about her probation-period pregnancy, and sabotaging the network by starving 66 base stations of fuel.

Masiyakurima, whose first assignment with NetOne was to build about 100 base stations and through subcontracting jobs with Sectional Poles and Masimba, has not only found himself inexplicably at the centre of the on-going saga, but also claims to have used about $1,4 million of his personal money since he had not been paid for years.

However, he believes that by causing the “publication of her findings to the press while a full forensic audit is underway”, Ndlovu had torn professional competence and due care, confidentiality, integrity and objectivity to shreds.

“The accounting profession in Zimbabwe has enjoyed a high level of stability and integrity and cannot be hijacked by rogue and unprincipled chartered accountants, who will sell their professional ethics for a bowl of soup,” he charged in the letter also copied to the President’s Office, Information minister Chris Mushowe, the Auditor-General and the Public Accountants and Auditors Board.

According to the irate businessman, the International Federation of Accountants’ code of ethics caution chartered accountants to exercise professional judgment and to guard against expropriating confidential information for one’s gain when a fraud is detected.

“ . . . she used information gained in her employment for personal advantage to . . . settle personal vendettas, causing harm to my business in the process,” Masiyakurima added.

In his petition, Masiyakurima submitted that the ongoing NetOne forensic audit should be suspended due to a number of irregularities.

“ . . . I submit that they have already made audit conclusions. I have doubts over the integrity of the records that are now under their care.

“I therefore appeal to your office to appoint a board of inquiry where viva voce evidence will be heard from interested parties, with the forensic auditors acting in an advisory role in conjunction with the Comptroller and Auditor-General,” he said to the Office of the President and Cabinet. Daily News