Police officers in court for alleged poaching

Midlands Bureau Chief

Bulawayo Chronicle August 20, 2007

THE officer-in-charge of Lalapanzi police station, Inspector Smart Siziba, appeared in court jointly with a subordinate facing allegations of poaching.

Siziba (40) and Toziva Manyanye (34), also of Lalapanzi police station, were not asked to plead when they appeared for an initial remand before Gweru provincial magistrate Mrs Rosa Takuva on Friday.
They were remanded on $200 000 bail each.
The prosecutor, Mr Talent Tadenyika, alleged that on 8 July the two officers drove in a police vehicle to Chomugayi farm partly owned by Mr Noel Frank Dollar, who is also the manager but does not reside at the property.
On arrival at the farm at around 9am Siziba and Manyanye went to the farm foreman Mr John Mapfumo's homestead where they met his two wives.
They inquired about their husband's whereabouts and were informed that he was not around.
They had an FN rifle and some switching gear, which were concealed in the police car. They left after informing the two women that they were going to fish as they usually did whenever they visited the farm.
Mr Tadenyika said the two officers went into a bush within the farm where they shot and killed an impala and kudu without permission from the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the farm owner.
Siziba and Manyanye sought assistance from farm workers in loading the animals into their car and drove to the foreman's homestead where they skinned them.
They allegedly loaded the meat into the police vehicle and drove back to their police station leaving behind the animals' skins.
The foreman made a report to the police on 11 July leading to the arrest of Siziba and Manyanye.
Police recovered the two animal skins.
The State was prejudiced of $48 million through the loss of the two animals.

quote:

The State was prejudiced of $48 million through the loss of the two animals.

Those were the very rare "golden fleeced" Impala and Kudu.

All figures are Zim $ of course. I guarantee they didn't post $200k US in bail money.

$200,000 in Zim dollars equals one US dollar. Yes, as in $1.00
I should be a Bondsman in Zimbabwe

I don't know what the current rate is but in early June it was 65,000 to 1 on the black market...so that's about $3 US if anyone really cares.

quote:

Originally posted by yukon delta:
I don't know what the current rate is but in early June it was 65,000 to 1 on the black market...so that's about $3 US if anyone really cares.

When they introduced the $200,000 bill recently the black market rate was $200,000 to one. I think it had actually gone to $250,000 to one earlier, but with nothing to buy the demand for forex went down a bit...

Oh, and it had gone from $65,000 to one to $80,000 to one by the time I went shopping after you left...

Well, I'm behind the times again. I knew it was higher but not how much.