Zimra boss forged academic papers, works for 13 years

“He has only four Ordinary Level passes excluding English, and he failed his Advanced Level examinations with two F symbols and an O symbol.”

ZIMRA Loss Control director Charlton Chihuri only has 4 ‘O’ Level passes, but has been working at the revenue authority for 13 years after forging qualifications.

This is contained in the forensic audit report conducted by HLB Zimbabwe Chartered Accountants into the operations of the revenue collector.

“Our investigations revealed that Charlton Chihuri misrepresented his academic qualifications to Zimra as early as 2003 when he first applied for the post of Loss Control Officer,” reads the report.

“He misrepresented that he had obtained six Ordinary Level passes, scored six Advanced Level points and that he was the legitimate holder of a Bachelor of Science Honours in Economics Degree with the University of Zimbabwe.

“Upon inquiry with both the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council and the University of Zimbabwe, we established that he had misrepresented his results.

“He neither has six Ordinary Level passes nor does he hold any degree with the University of Zimbabwe.

The auditors said the UZ refuted claims that Chihuri was never registered at the institution and categorically stated that the degree certificate that he presented to Zimra was fictitious.

Chihuri’s file with Zimra contained a Master’s degree with the University of Liverpool whose legitimacy is being questioned given that generally one cannot obtain a Master’s without an undergraduate qualification.

“Chihuri even failed Zimra training tests for supervisors and managers, scoring two F symbols for Tariff and Procedure 1 respectively.

“The authority was prejudiced to the tune of US$1,6 million in remuneration paid to an unqualified person.

“It was surely upon the leadership at Zimra to put in place measures to detect such cases of academic fraud.