Husband and wife jailed in Epa case for 6 years

Convicts in the External Payment Arrears account Manase Makale and his wife Eddah at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court in Dar es Salaam yesterday. Story on page 4. PHOTO | VENANCE NESTORY 

By Tausi Ally, The Citizen Correspondent

Posted  Saturday, September 28  2013 at  08:49

In Summary

Sentenced together with Mr Manase Makale and his wife Eddah was Bahati Mahenge, who will serve seven years behind bars.

Dar es Salaam. A husband and his wife were yesterday sentenced to five and one-and-half years in jail term respectively after they were convicted of siphoning off Sh1.1 billion from External Payment Arrears (EPA) account.

Sentenced together with Mr Manase Makale and his wife Eddah was Bahati Mahenge, who will serve seven years behind bars.

The three maintained calmness even after the sentence was passed but friends and relatives who turned out at the court to hear the fate of their loved ones wept.

Yesterday, the court acquitted two other accused — Godfrey Mosha and Davis Kamungu — saying prosecution had failed to prove the case against them beyond reasonable doubts.

The judgment was read by Justice Sekela Mushi on behalf of Justice Sam Rumanyika and the registrar of the High Court (Land Division), Mr Lameck Mlacha, who presided over the case for five years.

The court also ordered Bahati Mahenge and Manase Makale to refund Sh1.1bn stolen from the EPA account.

In his mitigation, Mahenge asked the court for a lenient sentence, saying his four children and his old parents depended on him.

He said the five years he had been on trial had been as traumatising as life in jail, pleading that the court take consideration of that in sentencing them.

Manase Makale told the court that he was sick and that if he and his wife were to be sent to jail their children would be subjected to misery.

After the mitigation, Magistrate Lameck said he was sentencing Mahenge and Makale to five years in jail on the first count of conspiracy to steal the money.

On the count of forgery, the two were also sentenced to serve five years in jail. Mahenge was also convicted in the third count and sentenced to seven years in jail.

The accused allegedly stole the money after presenting forged documents to the Bank of Tanzania (BoT), showing that a local company, Changanyikeni Residential Complex, had been assigned a Sh 1.1 billion debt by Marubeni Corporation of Japan.

Prosecution alleged that the fraudulently obtained cash from BoT was then deposited in the account of Changanyikeni Residential Complex.

Days later, the prosecution alleged that the money was transferred to Millennium Link Company, which is owned by Manase Makale and Godfrey Mosha.

SOURCE: THE CITIZEN