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Two Tanzanian ex-ministers handed three years for graft

Tuesday July 07 2015
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Former Finance Minister Basil Mramba (left) and ex-Energy Minister for Energy David Yona. Both were in government when they issued the tax exemptions to Alex Steward International. PHOTOS | FILE

Two former Tanzanian cabinet ministers, Basil Mramba, 75, and Daniel Yona, 76, were on Monday sentenced to serve three years in jail for abuse of office and causing Tsh11.7 billion (around $5.3 million) loss to the government.

The court acquitted a former permanent secretary with the Treasury, Gray Mgonja, who was charged alongside the two for what the judges said was lack of evidence.

After the judgment was read, Mr Mramba’s wife stepped into the dock where her husband was standing, extended her hand to him as tears freely streamed down her cheeks in sadness and apparent disbelief.

Relatives and friends of the convicted ministers wept after the ruling, apparently in disbelief over what had just befallen the once-powerful ex-government officials.

Immediately after the sentence, lawyers for the former ministers — Mr Peter Swai and Eliasa Msuya — said they would challenge the decision in the High Court.

Mramba and Yona, who served as Finance and Energy and Mineral ministers respectively in former president Benjamin Mkapa’s administration, were first arraigned in November 2008 along Mr Mgonja and charged with eleven counts of abuse of office and occasioning loss to the government.

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They were accused of granting tax exemption to UK-based Alex Stewart International, a company that was controversially hired to audit gold in Tanzania in 2003.

The deal saw the company receiving a whopping $50 million (about Tsh65 billion) in gold audit fees paid at an average of Tsh1.3 billion per month from June 2003 to August, 2007. The company completed the assignment and left the country in August, 2007.

Two of the three-member-panel that heard the case—Judge Sam Rumanyika and Mr Saul Kinemela, a senior official in the Labour Commission, said the prosecution proved their case “beyond all reasonable doubt.”

They rejected the defence given by the former ministers that then President Benjamin Mkapa had authorised the hiring of the gold assayers firm.

They said there was no sufficient evidence that the former Head of State had directed urgent procurement of the Alex Steward Assayers without following the necessary procedure.

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

The chairman of the panel read the judgment which disagreed with the finding of the two other members. He differed in evaluation of evidence that led to the conviction of the two.

The court convicted Mr Mramba in all eleven counts he faced and was handed three years in jail for each. However, the sentences will run concurrently, meaning he will only serve three years.

The court found Mr Yona guilty of five counts and sentenced him to serve three years in jail for each count. His terms, like those of his fellow ex-minister, will also run concurrently.

The two will also pay Tsh5 million in fines each for the offence of causing a loss to the government.

Before the sentencing, advocates for the convicts pleaded for lenient sentences considering the two men’s age and “poor health”.

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