Mramba, Yona to sweep Palestina Hospital for nine months in community

The new sentence was pronounced yesterday by Kisutu Resident Magistrate insisting that the prisoners should do the job or five days a week. The community service will be rendered until November 5th.That came after the court blessing the letter from the prisoner that recommended the prisoners to serve community.Kisutu Principal Resident Magistrate, Cyprian Mkeha said that on December  5, last year he received the letter from the prisons department with reference number 151/DAR/3/11/223 saying that the prisoners qualified for community service as continued punishment for the crime committed.He added that if prisons, sees that the convict deserves to be out, they write a letter to the court recommending community service.“After the letter had been approved by the court, communication is concluded with the social welfare officials to make arrangement for the implementation of the community service sentence for the inmates to be engaged in accordingly”, said Mkeha.The Magistrate said according to community service Act 6 0f 2002 section 3 where any person is convicted of an offence punishable by a imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years with or without the option of a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years but for which the court determines a term of imprisonment for three years or less with or without the option of fine, to be appropriate, the court may, subject to this act, make a community service.He added to explain that for the purpose of section –“community service “shall comprise unpaid public work for the benefit of that particular community, for a period not exceeding the term of imprisonment for which the court would have sentenced the offender. Considering that both prisoners are above 75 years old.On July 4 last year, Mramba and Yona were sentenced to serve three years in jail with 5 million shillings penalty for abuse of office and occasioning loss of 11.7bn/- to the government. Mramba was found guilty of 11 charges including misuse of office, causing a loss of Sh11.7bn to the government through the controversial hiring and tax exemptions to Alex Stewart (Asseyars) Government Business Corporation (ASA) for a gold audit. Yona was guilty of five out of the 11 counts.But they later appealed to the High Court and had the sentence reduced to three-years of imprisonment also overturning the Sh5m fine sentence ruled by the Kisutu Magistrate Court.The two Ministers served under retired President Benjamin Mkapa and were found guilty of occasioning the government an 11,752,350,148/- loss through unwarranted tax exemptions to the gold assayers firm, Alex Stewart Government Business Corporation. In 2003, Alex Stewart (Assayers) was controversially assigned to a contract which saw it receive a whopping Sh65bn/- (USD 50 million) in gold audit fees. It completed the assignment and left the country in August 2007 after having fetched monthly average of Sh1.3bn (USD1 million) from June 2003 to August 2007.