HARARE – Former tourism minister Priscah Mupfumira tasted freedom for the first time on Friday two months after she was arrested on corruption charges.

She had previously failed in her bail bid up to the Supreme Court, where her challenge to a certificate tendered by the Prosecutor General barring any court from granting her bail for 21 days was upheld.

In her latest appeal filed by Advocate Thabani Mpofu, the 64-year-old argued that it was an infringement of her constitutional rights to continue being detained indefinitely.

Justice Ammy Tsanga of the Harare High Court freed Mupfumira on $5,000 bail with stringent conditions.

“Bail is now a constitutional right,” said Tsanga, sidestepping arguments by prosecutors that Mupfumira was a flight risk and that she could interfere with still ongoing investigations.

As part of her bail conditions, Mupfumira was ordered to surrender her two passports and also title deeds to her Mt Pleasant home.

She must also report to a police station twice weekly and not to interfere with state witnesses, the judge said.

Mupfumira was arrested on July 24 and charged with corruption involving US$95 million from the state pension fund, NSSA.

Her arrest came after she was named among corrupt Zanu PF politicians by the party’s Youth League.

Prosecutors have laid out seven charges ranging from alleged abuse of state pension fund money to finance her political campaign to directing investments of up to $62 million into a bank against the advice of the pension fund’s risk committee.

She is alleged to have leaned on the pension fund to enter into property deals with the same bank worth $15.7 million.

Prosecutors say she also took a US$90,000 loan from NSSA which she used to buy a personal luxury SUV on the pretext that it was an official car. She went on to receive another ministerial vehicle, it is further alleged.

She insists that it was not her decision to take the vehicle loan but that of then public service secretary, Ngoni Masoka, who has also been arrested and is out on bail.

The charges arose from Mupfumira’s tenure as labour minister between 2014 and 2018, when she oversaw the state pension fund.

She denies the charges.

She will be back in court on October 4.