Former Principal Accountant in the Office of the Prime Minister, Geoffrey Kazinda has again been convicted of fraud by the Anti-Corruption Court.
This is after he was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud government of Shs316 million worth of fuel drawn by ‘ghost vehicles’ of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). The said vehicles were meant to carry relief to disaster victims.
kazinda was today found guilty together with a Clerk in the OPM, Beatrice Keezabu; Shamim Masembe – the proprietor of former Caltex fuelling station in Ntinda and Hussein Katumwa, the station manager.
Masembe and Katumwa were found guilty of aiding government officials to steal public funds while Keezabu was separately found guilty of making forged entries claiming that fuel was taken.
Trial Judge Lawrence Gidudu ruled that prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused persons had engaged in conspiracy to defraud, embezzlement, fraudulent accounting, forgery and uttering false documents.
The group awaits sentence upon finishing of mitigation from both Prosecution and the Defence.
Kazinda has already spent four years in jail on other charges. In June 2013, the same court found him guilty of forging the signature of then Permanent Secretary Pius Bigirimana. He was sentenced to five years which he is about to complete.
But addition to that, he is still facing more charges. He is jointly charged with officials of the finance ministry for allegedly misappropriating Shs21 billion from the NRDP funds meant to rehabilitate the war torn Northern Uganda.
