Prophet Walter Magaya’s Prophetic Healing and Deliver (PHD) Ministries is now shifting goal posts in their “anointing sales” case which is before .
The church which is in the habit of selling anointed goods, which they previously told the court were “donations” from church members, is now shifting goal posts accusing Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) officials of manipulating financial statements.
Magaya’s empire is crumbling after many of the church companies have been queuing at the courts to answer tax evasion charges after realizing millions from sales.
The church, which is well known for collecting litre bins of money and selling church products every service is being said to have not paid tax to ZIMRA, although they are denying the charge.
While cross examining the witness, who is a ZIMRA official, Tinashe Madakadze, PHD lawyers denied having signed a letter to confirm that they have made sales accusing Madakadze of creating the letter.
The church is being represented by Nelson Marimo, who in his defense said all the money of “anointing sales” were donations from church members.
However, during trial today, Marimo turned against the ZIMRA official, whom they are saying he manipulated financial statements and there was nothing like that in the PHD database.
The defense also said there was nothing to show that the confirmation of sales was recovered from PHD database, arguing that the state should have brought the computers to court.
The circumstances are that PHD was registered with ZIMRA as it sales taxable goods.
However, the church failed to do so and was asked by ZIMRA after Madakadze invaded their premises in a bid to investigate the matter.
During the investigation, Madakadze said he discovered that about US$28 million was realized and some of the money was transferred to Magaya and his wife Tendai Magaya’s personal bank accounts.
Another church company, Yadah Connect, was also nabbed for failing to pay tax while the third, Aretha Medicines was convicted for advertising HIV and AIDS “cure”.
Regional magistrate Hosea Mujaya is hearing the trial matter.
