{UAH} Kazinda faces 49 new charges
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Kazinda faces 49 new charges
Convicted former principal accountant in the Office of the Prime Minister Geoffrey Kazinda has been slapped with 49 fresh charges of Shs8b fraud after a police file which had disappeared five years ago was recovered. File photo
Kampala. Convicted former principal accountant in the Office of the Prime Minister Geoffrey Kazinda has been slapped with 49 fresh charges of Shs8b fraud after a police file which had disappeared five years ago was recovered.
The charges were prepared in 2012 at CID headquarters in Kibuli but the case file mysteriously went missing from police thereafter.
In the new file, Kazinda is jointly charged with three alleged accomplices who are all staff in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM).
They are accused of abuse of office, causing financial loss, conspiracy to defraud and forgery between October 14, 2011 and February 23, 2012.
Particulars of the offences state that on November 10, 2011 at the OPM in Kampala, without the approval and authority of the accounting officer, Kazinda prepared the transfer of Shs1.4b to be drawn on the National Policy on Disaster Management account in Bank of Uganda.
The charge sheet
The charge sheet further states that Kazinda and his accomplices forged several security papers of $37,500 (about Shs131m).
The prosecution further contends that Kazinda and his accomplices while at the OPM on December 20, 2011, forged several withdrawal forms worth more than Shs216m purporting that the then Permanent Secretary, Mr Pius Bigirimana, had authorised the withdrawal.
Speaking to Daily Monitor by telephone on Wednesday, the spokesperson of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Ms Jane Okuo Kajuga, said: "In the aftermath of the OPM cases, very many files were opened up. Many were forwarded to our office for advice and some even had charge sheets but that does not mean we would consent to all of them."
She added: "What we did was to read them and then decide whether the matter should go to court. If it was to go to court, it's a requirement that the DPP's consent must be on the charge sheet. Any file without the DPP's consent [signature] is questionable."
However, Ms Kajuga declined to comment on the new charges against Kazinda, saying that being a public holiday she could not access the case file to know the contents.
In a related development, Kazinda has been ordered to pay bill of costs amounting to more than Shs77.3m to his former boss, Mr Pius Bigirimana.
The bill of costs is in regard to the law suit that Kazinda had instituted against Mr Bigirimana for having portrayed him as a difficult principal accountant in his book titled; 'Corruption, a Tale of Wolves in Sheep's Clothing'.
But Kazinda later, in May 2015, withdrew the law suit in which he wanted Mr Bigirimana to pay him Shs6b for allegedly defaming him in his book. However, the court in turn awarded Mr Bigirimana costs that have since been billed to a tune of more than Shs77.3million.
Background
The fresh charges against Kazinda are among a series of other cases he is already facing in the Anti-Corruption Court.
In 2013, the Anti-Corruption Court sentenced Kazinda to five years in prison for forging 26 signatures of his then boss and Permanent Secretary Mr Bigirimana with intent to steal billions of shillings belonging to the OPM.
In a separate case, Kazinda is on trial for alleged forgery of vouchers, where government vehicles are purported to have consumed fuel worth Shs316m from a filling station in Ntinda.
He is also facing 69 other corruption charges involving the plunder of more than Shs5.4b meant for a post-war reconstruction programme in northern Uganda and Karamoja under the Peace, Recovery and Development Plan.
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