Mramba, Yona: Prosecution files notice of appeal

...

INNOCENT-THE BLOGGER-BOY

Basil Mramba, the former minister of finance and Daniel Yona, the former energy and minerals minister.

 The prosecution in the case which was facing former cabinet ministers Basil Mramba and Daniel Yona has filed notice of
intention to appeal against the sentence  and an acquittal of     former permanent secretary in the treasury Gray Mgonja.

 

Two former cabinet ministers were on Monday, this week sentenced to three years in jail for abuse of office and occasioning loss of 11.7bn/- to the government.

 

The Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam handed the sentence to  Basil Mramba, the former minister of finance and Daniel Yona, the former energy and minerals minister.

 

The Prosecution has filed it under section 378 and 379 of Criminal Procedure Act.

 

Mramba and Yona  served under retired President Benjamin Mkapa.

 

Principal Resident Magistrate of Kisutu Resident Magistrates’ Court Cyprian Mkeha yesterday confirmed to have received the appeal.

 

When asked about the notice of appeal by defence side  which was supposed to be filed yesterday Mkeha said that he doesn’t have any information about it.

 

Speaking to the Guardian by telephone the Principal State Attorney who presided over the case, Oswald Tibabyekomya claimed that they filed the appeal because, the punishment given to the accused especially on the count of occasioning loss to the government was lenient.

 

The court ordered them to pay a  fine of  5m/-  or  jailed for  three years while according to the law  the  accused had been  proven guilty and return the similar amount of money for occasioning the loss.

 

He also criticised the decision by the court to set free Mgonja because the prosecution believed that the evidence it had brought before the court was enough to convict Mgonja.

 

Early this week,  two members of a panel hearing the historical case, Judge Sam Rumanyika and Saul Kinemela, and a senior official in the Labour Commission, convicted the duo of abuse of office and occasioning 11.7bn/- loss to the government and sentenced to three years jail each.

 

The two members of the court who sat at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court as Principal Resident Magistrates rejected the shield applied by the convicts that President Benjamin Mkapa had authorised the acquisition of the gold assayers company.

 

They further held that the Government Notices that were granted by Mramba for tax exceptions were arbitrarily issued in total disregard of the advice given by the Attorney General (AG) and officers from the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), leading to pecuniary loss.

 

The judgment of the court was not commonly reached as one member of the panel, Judge John Utamwa, gave a dissenting judgment.

The two were found guilty of occasioning the government an 11,752,350,148/- loss through unwarranted tax exemptions to the gold Assayers firm, Alex Stewart Government Business Corporation.

 

 Mgonja was acquitted after the prosecution failed to prove the charges levelled against him beyond reasonable doubt.

 

According to the prosecution, it was alleged that the two former ministers committed the offences between August 2002 and June 14, 2004, in Dar es Salaam. The prosecution alleged and finally proved that, by giving preferential treatments to M/S Alex Stewart (Assayers) Government Business Corporation the accused occasioned the government the loss of 11,752,350,148/- .

 

The accused are charged with failing to take reasonable care to discharge their duties by unjustifiably signing Government Notices that led to the loss of the said amount.

 

The case was instituted following three years of investigations by the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) and the police into the suspicious hiring of Alex Stewart (Assayers) Government Business Corporation (ASA) to audit gold production in Tanzania.

 

Immediately after delivery of the judgment, some close relatives for the convicts broke into tears and at least one of them had to be assisted out of the court room.

 

 In 2003, Alex Stewart (Assayers) was controversially assigned a contract which saw it receive a whopping 65bn/- (USD 50 million) in gold audit fees. 

 

It completed the assignment and left the country in August 2007 after it had enjoyed an average of 1.3bn/- (USD1 million) every month from June 2003 to August 2007.