The Blantyre Chief Resident Magistrate Court has sentenced a 33-year-old man to twenty four months imprisonment with hard labour for stealing K21.4 million.
According to Blantyre police publicist, Inspector Augustus Nkhwazi, the convict has been identified as Alinafe Jacob Mwanza of Chibvunguma village, Traditional Authority (TA) Chulu in Kasungu.
Mwanza was project manager for Performance Based Financing Malawi project under College of Medicine (COM) and he committed the offences between December 2015 and June 2016.
Accountant for the project told police that the convict forged signatures on payment vouchers to appear as if they were signed by Principal Investigator at the Performance Based Financing Malawi project.
Through the forged signatures, Mwanza managed to fleece the project of money amounting to MK21,433,553 during the period in question.
The matter was reported to Police after it was discovered that there was something wrong with the project finances.
Mwanza was arrested and charged with forgery and theft by servant and appearing before the Blantyre Chief Resident Magistrate Court on Wednesday, Mwanza pleaded guilty to both charges.
In his submissions before the court, Police prosecutor Justice Manolo of Blantyre Police pleaded with the court to pass a stiff punishment to the convict saying his conduct led to loss of huge sums of money which was not recovered.
Passing the sentence, her worship First Grade Magistrate Dianna Mangwana said the court had taken into consideration the fact that Mwanza was a first offender and that he pleaded guilty to the charges.
She therefore sentenced Mwanza to 24 months imprisonment with hard labour for the first count of forgery and 24 months imprisonment with hard labour for the second count of theft by servant.
