Africa-Press – Uganda. The Supreme Court is set to hear about 100 criminal appeals in one of its upcoming criminal sessions, Monitor has learnt.
Among the criminal appeals to be heard is that of pension thieves led by Jimmy Lwamafa.
“Notice is hereby given that a pre-hearing conference will take place on June 27, 2023 at 9.30am at [the] Supreme Court before Hon Lady Justice Prof Lillian Tibatemwa-Ekirikunbiza.
The objective of the conference is to fix the hearing dates for criminal appeals and determine the format for presentation of arguments, and time frames for filing written submissions,” a notice from the Supreme Court issued last week reads.
At the hearing, the court asked both parties to make written submissions pending ruling at a later date.
In November 2016, the Anti-Corruption Court found Lwamafa, a former permanent secretary in the Public Service Ministry, Stephen Kiwanuka Kunsa (former commissioner in charge of pensions), and Christopher Obey (principal accountant in pensions section) guilty for having fraudulently budgeted Shs88.2b as National Social Security Fund (NSSF) in the financial years 2010/2011 and 2011/2012, very well knowing that civil servants don’t contribute to NSSF.
Out of the three pension thieves, Obey (RIP) was handed the toughest sentence of 10 years inprisonment.
This was followed by his former boss, who was sentenced to seven years and Kunsa, who got the least punishment of five years.
While handing Obey his sentence, presiding judge Lawrence Gidudu faulted him for having been the centre man in this syndicate corruption, who generated the schedules which audit reports found containing ghosts.
The judge in further faulting Obey, said he was a technical officer who was responsible for advising his colleagues (Lwamafa and Kunsa) on the budget formation and execution.
The judge, while convicting the trio top officials, said the syndicate corruption started from the Public Service Ministry, smoothened in the Finance ministry and perfected in Cairo Bank where the said money was paid put to ghost pensioners.
Further, the judge in his verdict, ordered the trio convicted officials to jointly compensate government with Shs50b following the financial loss they had occasioned to it, and that the compensation would have been much higher but since convicts were assisted by other criminals who are still at large in committing this criminality, the Shs50b would be sufficient in the circumstances.
But being dissatisfied with the conviction and sentence, the trio appealed before the Court of Appeal, which upheld the said conviction.
It’s upon this background that the convicts appealed to the highest and last court in the land (Supreme Court), which appeal is scheduled for hearing.
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