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Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
Morgan Jange, 31, a former Econet manager who was extradited from South Africa, was yesterday convicted of defrauding the company of airtime worth more than $90,000 in 2012.

Jange of Paddonhurst in Bulawayo was employed as an accounts manager at the company’s Bulawayo branch and was responsible for Bulawayo and Matabeleland North provinces.

He pleaded not guilty when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Sibongile Msipa Marondedze but was however convicted.
He was remanded in custody to today for sentence.

In mitigation, Jange said he stole to raise money to pay for his mother’s treatment.

“Initially my mother had cancer so I was trying to get money for her treatment,” said Jange.

For the State, Nkathazo Dlodlo said Jange committed the offence in 2012 after forging some invoices.

Dlodlo said on September, 7, 2012, Jange made fraudulent invoices indicating that he had sold air time worth $90,500 to OK Entumbane.

“By means of this misrepresentation Morgan Jange received recharge cards worth $90,500 to deliver to OK Entumbane but instead converted them to his own use,” said Dlodlo.

He said Jange’s duties were to sell air time to the company’s clients that include OK, TM, Zimpost and independent distributors among others.

Dlodlo said Jange was also responsible for achieving the company’s sales targets, deployment, branding material, getting new channel members, managing them and recommending areas for deployment of new base stations.

He said the matter came to light last year in August after OK Entumbane realised that they had been wrongly invoiced for airtime worth $90,500,00.

He said Jange was arrested with the assistance of Interpol as he was now residing in South Africa.

“Investigations carried out revealed that the accused person didn’t deliver the said recharge stock cards to OK Entumbane despite signing for them in his workplace register indicating that he was taking them to OK, leading to the complainant making a report to the police,” said Dlodlo.