Police in Lilongwe have arrested a patient attendant at Bwaila and a nurse at Kasungu District Hospital on suspicion that they duped various individuals of K600,000.
The suspects have been identified as Agness Dzumani, 35, patient attendant, and Ivy Chinguwo, 33, nurse.
The two allegedly duped jobs seeks on the pretext of recruiting them as Health Surveillance Assistants, after posing themselves as Bwaila Hospital’s Human Resource and District Health Officers, respectively, this year.
Inspector Hastings Chigalu, Lilongwe Police station spokespers, said that in February this year Bwaila District Hospital conducted interviews for the post of Health Surveillance Assistant.
During and after the said interviews, the suspects separately approached at least three individuals who were part of the attendees, and convinced the victims to pay them money if they were to stand any chance of being shortlisted for the post.
After getting convinced that the suspects were indeed the said title holders at Bwaila District Hospital, the three victims coughed up a sum of K600, 000 through mobile money transfer.
But when the victims noticed the missing of their names among those shortlisted for the post, they followed the issue up to the District Health Officer (DHO) who denied involvement in the malpractice.
Later, Bwaila DHO referred the matter to Lilongwe Police who instituted thorough investigations which led to the arrest of the suspects on Friday, November 17, 2023 following months of manhunt.
Meanwhile, both suspects have admitted to have obtained money from the victims, and police has since recovered K250,000 from them.
The duo will appear in court soon to answer the charge of Fraud Other Than False Pretenses.
Agness Dzumani, hails from Mawuyana Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Makwangwala, Ntcheu, whilst Ivy Chinguwo comes from William Village, T/A Bvumbwe in Thyolo District.
