Fatima Bulla
HEAD of Anglican’s Manicaland Diocese, Bishop Erick Ruwona was arrested for allegedly converting for personal use a loan from Agribank worth close to a million dollars meant to fund the construction of a school in Rusape.
According to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), in 2016 Bishop Ruwona and his accomplices converted a loan from Agribank worth USD700 000 meant for construction of St Catherine Girls School in Rusape for their personal use.
Zacc revealed this in a tweet this morning while to setting the record straight following contradicting reports about the arrest which were going round the social media platforms.
“ZACC wants to set the record straight on the arrest of the Anglican Bishop Erik Ruwona: he and his accomplices took a loan from Agribank of USD700 000 in 2016 purportedly for the construction of St Catherine Girls School Rusape and converted the loan to personal use,” the anti-graft commission tweeted.
Social media had been abuzz with allegations that Bishop Ruwona had been arrested by ZACC officials for forcing pupils who were seeking for places at Anglican Schools in Manicaland to buy bibles and hymn books.
The message which was going around on WhatsApp alleged that pupils were being forced to pay $800 for the holy book.
In 2015 the diocese was quoted in the media highlighting that it had set its sight on raising more than USD$300 000 for the purposes of building a Girls’ College which was to open the following year.