Justice Lawrence Gidudu the Head of the Anti-Corruption Court has directed Oscar Baitwa and Geoffrey Bihamaiso the Directors of the Jinja road based Three Ways Shipping Service Limited to defend themselves in the Shs9.5bn fraud case.
The accused persons who are brothers are supposed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they didn’t participate in the theft, conspiracy to defraud, obtain money by fraud and conspire to defraud Shs9.5bn as the Director for Public Prosecution (DPP) through Abigail Agaba claims.
“The fact that the accused persons kept quiet from 2009 to 2012 while huge sums of dollars were coming in for no work done renders the accused liable as links in the chain. The two have a case to answer on all the accounts,” the nonsense judge ruled.
According to court documents, MTN Uganda contracted Three Ways to provide forwarding and clearing services for its equipment sourced from overseas.
In the course of business, MTN Uganda alleged that Three Ways had been paid money based on false invoices supported by fake airway bills.
DPP claims that the accused persons connived with JP Bosabosa and Naphatali Were who were employees of MTN who pleaded guilty and asked to be allowed to negotiate with the complaint and pay some of the stolen money.
DPP further dropped charges against Faridah Senkumba, Kafuko Wasswa who were employees of Three Ways who were earlier accused of processing the money which was paid in fraud.
Agaba the lead prosecutor told court that Baitwa and Bihamaiso together with Oscar Baitwa Obusa were the principal signatories to the company’s bank accounts and were mandated holders of the accounts used to siphon money from MTN insisting that they participated by facilitating the exit of the stolen money.
She added that the accused persons were the brain behind those activities of their company and were responsible for facilitating the theft of USD 3,800,000.
She further submitted that the stolen money was moved electronically and was received by the accused’s company through their bank accounts and fraudulently processed by employees of MTN.
She insists that the two accused persons are signatories to the said company bank accounts and benefited from the stolen money.
“As regards the participation of the accused persons, Agaba referred to the testimony of Masanso, PW11, a fraud investigator who testified that he was called by the accused for a meeting over this case. He met them and they asked him to destroy evidence at a fee of USD 150,000 which he declined,” a judge stated.
Agaba insisted that whether the invoices from Three Ways company were transmitted by flash disk or by email, the fact remains that they committed the offences by obtaining money without providing service to MTN.
She told court that the entire fraud was discovered after MTN contracted Deloitte International company to do a forensic investigation according to supplier payment documents.
However, Henry Kyalimpa the accused’s lawyer submitted that since there was a running contract between MTN and his client’s company, any money paid to the accused’s bank accounts was for service rendered.
He told court that there was no evidence that any of the accused persons provided MTN with fictitious invoices to make payments and the DPP failed to connect the accused persons to the crime.
He insisted that Naphtali, JP Bosabosa and all employees of MTN were the ones that processed payments from MTN, not his clients.
Kyalimpa pinned Senkumba and Kafuko as the source of the fictitious invoices. Unfortunately, the DPP shielded them and they did not testify to implicate the accused persons.
In conclusion, the judge stated that on the stage of a case to answer, court did not evaluate evidence to find if the accused are guilty or not.
“It is not in dispute, at this stage, that money was processed fraudulently, using unregistered invoices from Three Ways company which were attached to bogus airway bills that were not issued by any airlines or endorsed by customs,” the judge stated.
The judge discovered that the money under dispute is USD1,800,000 not USD 3,800,000 as MTN claims.
By Grapevine Reporter
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