COULD JAMWA BE A VICTIM OF INSTRUCTIONS FROM ABOVE?

Jamwa (left) with his lawyer David F Mpanga during an earlier court appearance.
By Lydia Mukisa
Posted Thursday, March 3 2011 at 15:11

The former Managing Director of National Social Security Fund, David Chandi Jamwa faces a 14 years sentence or fine of Shs6.7 million or both after he was found guilty and convicted by the Anti Corruption Court for causing financial loss of Shs3 billion to the fund.
The presiding Judge John Bosco Katutsi, however, acquitted Mr Jamwa of abuse of office.
Mr Jamwa was sent to jail until March 9 when he re-appears in Court for sentencing. This was after his lawyer David F Mpanga asked Court to give him time to prepare his mitigation.
When acquitting Mr Jamwa on the count of abuse of office, the Judge said prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Jamwa did an arbitrary act which was prejudicial to the interest of the Fund when he gave Crane Bank the mandate to sell NSSF’s bonds.
The Judge noted that the evidence brought by the two key prosecution witnesses indicated that Mr Jamwa did not wake up one morning and authorize the sale of the bonds but there was a process which was approved by the Minister of Finance that they were going to start selling bonds in order to work on the new proposal to increase the yield of the Fund.
Judge Katutsi added that the sale of the bonds did not happen out of the blue.
“From their evidence for one to turn round and say the accused person acted arbitrary would be a terrible assault of common sense. I would with respect and in agreement with assessors find accused person not guilty on this count and acquit him,” said Judge Katutsi.
The office of the Inspector General of Government (IGG) told Court that between September and November 2007 Mr Jamwa caused a financial loss of 13 billion shillings to NSSF by selling bonds before their maturity.