ConCourt sets aside damning forensic audit report

Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court has set aside a Supreme Court ruling upholding a forensic audit report linking former National Social Security Authority (NSSA) chairperson Robin Vela to several corruption cases. In March 2019, BDO Zimbabwe Chartered accountants released a damning forensic audit report which implicated Vela in several cases of corruption. BDO was contracted by the Auditor-General Mildred Chiri. Vela applied for a review of the audit report and won the matter at the High Court. The ruling means the High Court decision which dismissed the audit report is now operational. New Zimbabwe reports that the Constitutional Court on Wednesday ordered a fresh hearing of the matter by different judges. ‘As agreed to by the full Bench of this court, the operative part of the judgement, in the exercise of the court’s powers as stated in section 19 of the court’s rules, the judgment in the Supreme Court in SC 61/22 be and is hereby set aside. The matter is remitted to the Supreme Court for a hearing (afresh) before a different panel of judges,’ said Justice Paddington Garwe. Advocate Method Ndlovu representing Vela, said the ‘net effect of the Constitutional Court judgment sets aside the judgement of the Supreme Court which means now we have a live judgment’.