BY KARAMA KENYUNKO
7th July 2015
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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 two served under retired President Benjamin Mkapa and 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.
The court acquitted former Permanent Secretary to the Treasury after the
prosecution failed to prove the charges levied against him beyond reasonable
doubt despite its 13 witnesses and exhibits.
Mramba and Yona were found guilty by two members of a three judge panel. The
leader of the panel John Utamwa was in favour of the accused however his
decision was overwhelmed by the majority of two, Judge Sam Rumanyika and Saul
Kinemela who found the accused guilty as charged.
The judges found Mramba guilty and convicted him for all 11 counts. He had
been charged with 10 counts relating to abuse of office and one count of
occasioning loss to the government. In each count, he was sentenced to three
years in jail for each offence to be served concurrently.
On the another hand Yona, was found guilty and convicted of four counts
relating to abuse of office and one count of occasioning loss to the
government and was sentenced to three years in jail for each count also to be
served concurrently.
On the count of ‘Occasioning loss to the government’ the convicts were
sentenced to pay a fine of five million or serve three years in jail.
Reading the ruling, judge Rumanyika said the court is of the view that the
then President Benjamin Mkapa did not direct the convicts to engage Alex
Steward Assayers without following due procedure as the convicts had claimed.
He said Government Notices that were granted by Mramba for tax exceptions were
arbitrarily issued in total disregard of advice given by the Attorney General
(AG) and officers from the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) and as a result
led to the pecuniary loss.
Leader of the panel, Judge John Utamwa differed with the other two and gave a
dissenting judgment.
Defence advocate Peter Swai (for Mramba) told The Guardian that he would
appeal to the High Court against both convictions and sentences. Likewise,
Yona’s Counsel Elisa Msuya expressed similar sentiments saying he is not
satisfied by the judgment of the court.
Before the ruling, the prosecution led by Principal State Attorney Tumaini
Kweka informed the court that despite the fact that the convicts do not have
any previous criminal records, the court should impose the toughest sentence
possible in accordance to the law so as to serve as a lesson to other public
officials.
During Mitigation, advocates Swai and Msuya, requested the court to be lenient
considering the elderly age of the accused citing that Mramba is 75 years old
and Yona 76 years old.
The advocates submitted that the health condition of their clients is fragile
and as a result they had even frequently sought permission of the court to go
to India for treatment during the course of the case.
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 of11,752,350,148/-
.
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.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
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