Court sentences ex-PTC employees to 7 years for theft

The Blantyre Principal Resident Magistrate has sentenced two ex-Peoples Trading Centre (PTC) employees and a businessman to 7 and half years imprisonment with hard labour (IHL)  for stealing about K100 million from the company.

Chiku Kaphuka, Markerting and Communications Manager for PTC

Principal Resident Magistrate Innocent Nebi jailed Richard Kamunga who was working as Chief Accountant and Clement Michongwe who was working as Disbursement Supervisor and businessman Mc Hellings Kayala  in absentia as he is on the run.

Nebi, who is now Assistant Registrar at the Industrial Relations Court, started hearing the case in 2013 and sentenced the trio on Tuesday 23rd January 2018.

The three faced six counts of theft contrary to section 278 of the penal code.

Nebi said in the first and second counts, he convicted all the three for stealing K34, 046,802.90 from PTC while Kamunga and Michongwe were convicted in the third count for stealing K20, 671,278.

In the fourth and fifth counts, all the three were convicted for stealing K35, 142,634.60 from PTC and in the last count; Kayala was convicted for stealing K4, 671,591 from the retail giant.

Nebi said in total about K102 million was lost in the fraud and no recovery was made and bashed Kamunga and Michongwe for breaching the trust that their employer had reposed in them which resulted in the loss of the huge amounts of money.

The magistrate said the offence was well calculated hence passing a custodial sentence.

He therefore sentenced all the three convicts to serve 36 months IHL in the first two counts and in the third count, Kamunga and Michongwe were sentenced to serve 24 months while in the fourth and fifth counts, all the three were sentenced to 30 months IHL with Kalaya sentenced to 12 months IHL in the last count.

Nebi said the sentences were to run consecutively which means Kamunga and Michongwe will serve a total of 90 months or 7 and half years while Kayala will serve a total of 78 months IHL or 6 and half years when he is apprehended.

Kayala will face another charge of escaping a lawful arrest when he is apprehended by law enforcers.

Reacting to the conviction and sentences, PTC Marketing and Communications Manager Chiku Kaphuka welcomed the court judgement.

“This will serve as a warning to others that the long arm of the law will always catch up with you,” said Kaphuka.

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Wosova
Wosova
6 years ago

“…started hearing the case in 2013 and sentenced the trio on Tuesday 23rd January 2018.”
WTF!!!?
5 years just hearing a case?

Wanjiku
Wanjiku
6 years ago

If one can trace all these come from Lhomwe Belt. Too many thieves.

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