TIME ENDS FOR EVIDENCE IN SEVEN-YEAR OLD MRAMBA CRIMINAL CASE

Evidence time ends in Mramba case

Daily  News Tanzania  On Line,  Published on Friday, 

29 May 2015 01:29

Written by FAUSTINE KAPAMA

PRESENTATION of evidence by both parties in a seven-year criminal case against former cabinet ministers Basil Mramba, Daniel Yona; and permanent secretary Gray Mgonja was concluded in a Dar es Salaam court.

The parties had met at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court for the closing stages where they would have prepared a schedule for filing final submissions on whether the accused persons have a case to answer.

The session was, however, pushed to today because preparations of court proceedings have not been concluded. After presentation of the submissions, the court will enter into the difficult part of the trial and preparation of the judgment.

The case is presided over by a panel of High Court Judges John Utamwa and Sam Rumanyika and Saul Kinemela, who is a senior official in the Labour Commission.

In the trial, the prosecution called a total of 13 witnesses in attempt to prove the charges against the trio. On the other hand, the defence lined up five witnesses, including the accused persons themselves, to disprove the charges presented by the prosecution.

Mramba, then Finance Minister; Yona, who was Energy and Minerals Minister; and Mgonja, ex-permanent secretary with the Treasury, are accused of occasioning 11.7bn/- loss to the government during procurement of gold assayers firm, Alex Stewart Government Business Corporation.

The prosecution alleges that the trio committed the offences between August 2002 and June 14, 2004, in Dar es Salaam, by giving preferential treatments to M/S Alex Stewart (Assayers) Government Business Corporation.

Their case followed three years of investigations by the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) and the police into the suspicious hiring of Alex Stewart (Assayers) Government Business Corporation (ASA) to audit gold production in Tanzania.

The firm was in 2003 controversially assigned through a contract, which saw it receive a whopping 50 million US dollars in gold audit fees.

It completed the assignment and left the country in August 2007. It is alleged that Gold Assayers Government Business Corporation was paid an average of one million US dollars every month from June 2003 to August 2007.