A FORMER accountant with the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), Justice Lumina Katiti, and four others are to pay a total of 1.807bn/- fine or serve 140 years custodian sentence for fraud, bribery and money laundering charges.
Other convicts are ex-accountant of the
Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited (TTCL), Marcus Mussa Masila
and three businessmen, Kanuti Ferdinand Ndomba, Gidion Wasonga Otullo
and Robert Phares Mbetwa.
Principal Resident Magistrate Renatus
Rutatinisibwa convicted them of 63 counts of forgery, uttering
documents, diversion of money, using documents intended to mislead
principal and money laundering after being satisfied by prosecution’s
evidence.
According to the judgment delivered at
the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam last week,
Katiti will have to spend behind bars for 16 years if he fails to pay a
total fine of 203m/-having been convicted of seven counts of using
documents to mislead principal and money laundering.
While Masila was sentenced to go to jail
for 48 years and pay 402m/- or serve another jail term of 24 years
having been convicted of 24 counts of forgery, uttering false documents,
diversion and money laundering.
On his part, the judgment reads, Ndomba
is to pay a fine of 402m/- or go to jail for 24 years as he was
convicted of 12 counts of diversion and money laundering, whereas Otullo
was convicted of 12 counts of forgery, uttering false documents and
money laundering and sentenced to pay 400m/- or 36 jail term.
The court convicted Mbetwa of eight
counts of money laundering and sentenced to either pay 400m/-fine or go
to jail for 20 years.
However, none of the convicts managed to
pay the fine imposed for each. They opted to go to serve the provided
custodian sentence. In his judgment, the magistrate ordered the
sentences imposed regarding the jail terms to run concurrently.
This means that each convict will have
to remain behind bars for only five years. The magistrate, however,
acquitted two other businessmen, Faraji Augustino Chambo and Dickson
Hezron Maira of all the offences they were charged jointly with the
convicts after the prosecution had miserably failed to prove the charges
against them.
During the trial, the prosecution was
lead by a team comprising Senior State Attorneys, Shadrack Kimaro, State
Attorney, Estazia Wilson and a prosecutor from the Prevention and
Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) Marx Ally.
It was alleged that between 2007 and
2009, the accused conspired to transfer sh. 3,399,251,740.24 property of
the TTCL being payment for the TRA tax and was illegally paid to UEE
Tanzania Limited.
The court heard further that with intent
to defraud, Masila forged signatures of TTCL signatories and exchanged
TIS forms intended to transfer cash to TRA by altering the name to UEE.
According to the charge sheet, between 2008 and 2009, the accused
obtained properties including
No comments :
Post a Comment