HARARE – National Social Security Authority (NSSA) general manager, Charles Shava was Friday granted ZW$500,000 bail following his arrest a day ago for allegedly twisting board resolutions in order to facilitate the awarding of unapproved wages to a group of the organisation’s medical doctors.

Shava allegedly prejudiced NSSA of ZW$12 million in terms of the unlawful allowances.

He briefly appeared before Harare magistrate Stanford Mambanje charged with fraud and was ordered to return to court May 3 for routine remand.

According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Shava allegedly altered a resolution that had been rejected by the board to allow the payment of four NSSA doctors.

“On the 20th of December 2022, the accused person with the intention to deceive, made a representation to NSSA in a bid to show favour to NSSA Medical Doctors by generating a memorandum addressed to the Chairperson of the Human Resources Committee and fraudulently added the allowances (on call allowances, non-practicing allowances and medical allowances) which had been turned down by the board.

“On 20 December 2022 and with the intention to deceive the Acting Director Human Resources, the accused fraudulently altered the wording of the Board Resolution passed by NSSA board.

“The original Board resolution reads ‘The HR Committee was to consult the Finance on the proposed amounts before sharing with the board the forged resolution, which the accused gave to the Acting Director HR’,” reads the outline.

According to court papers, the committee was to consult Finance on the proposed amounts before implementation.

Shava then allegedly sent a message to the Human Resources Acting Director, Tambudzai Jongwe on February 14, 2023 instructing her to proceed and pay the doctors’ allowances with effect from January 1, 2023.

This was despite having knowledge that the conditions set by the Board had not been addressed.

Acting upon the misrepresentation, Jongwe effected the payments of the doctor’s allowances totaling $12,246,571.48.

Shava had tried to preempt ZACC’s action against him through issuing a statement on Saturday to justify his 115 percent pay increase as a “skills retention scheme”.