Ex-minister’s appeal rejected

Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter

FORMER Pub­lic Ser­vice, Labour and Social Wel­fare Min­is­ter Pet­ron­ella Kagonye will serve her jail time fully after the High Court on Tuesday upheld an effective 16-month jail term, described by the appeal judges as being on the lenient side.

Kangonye stole 20 laptops.

Ka­gonye had appealed against con­vic­tion and sen­tence for steal­ing 20 laptops meant to bene­fit schools but the High Court found the trial and conviction had been quite proper and the 16 month sentence not only did not induce a sense of shock but seemed, if anything, to be on the lenient side.

Only last month her bid for bail pending appeal was rejected by the same court on the ground that she was unlikely to suc­ceed on appeal.

As predicted by the court, Kagonye’s appeal on Tuesday failed after Justice Benjamin Chikowere sitting with Justice Rogers Manyangadze found no merit in the application and upheld the former minister’s conviction and sentence.

Delivering the judgment for the court Justice Chikowero said Kagonye, who had the onus to convince the court the sentence was shockingly outrageous, did not go beyond asserting that it was disturbingly absurd.

The court upheld the trial court finding that Kagonye abused her position of trust and the fact that at the time the offence was committed she was the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare.

“Accordingly, one of her key result areas was to enhance social protection of vulnerable groups in the country,” said Justice Chikowero.

The judge said the sentence imposed on Kagonye did not at all induce a sense of shock. If anything, it seemed to err on the side of leniency, noting that she became a liability and an obstacle to social development.

“She diverted laptops acquired using public funds to her own selfish ends,” said Justice Chikowero.

“To that extent, the trial court discerned traits of corruption in the way that the appellant committed the offence and was mindful of that in assessing the sentence.”

The former min­is­ter was in June this year slapped with an effect­ive 16-month jail term for steal­ing 20 laptops in a cor­rup­tion case linked to crim­inal abuse of pub­lic office, and has launched an appeal to the High Court and applied for bail.

The trial court after con­vict­ing her set a sen­tence of 36 months, with 12 months sus­pen­ded on con­di­tion of future good beha­viour, and a fur­ther eight months were sus­pen­ded on con­di­tion that she pays back US$ 10 000, the value of the 20 laptops that she stole.

This left her to serve an effective 16 months in jail.

Kagonye was ordered to pay back the money on or before August 31 this year, but failed to meet the dead­line. But she, however, suc­cess­fully sought for an exten­sion of time to repay the money.

Kagonye received 20 laptops from the State as a dona­tion not for her per­sonal bene­fit but for the pur­pose of dis­tri­bu­tion to deserving schools in her polit­ical con­stitu­ency.

The inten­ded schools were named by her in her request for the dona­tion and lis­ted in the han­dover form signed on her behalf.

But in her defence Kagonye sought to argue that although the laptops were released at her writ­ten request made on behalf of her con­stitu­ency and indeed sub­ject to the terms of the writ­ten trust agree­ment, she was not privy to the agree­ment because it was signed by her brother, Evans, who received the laptops on her behalf.

That impressed neither the trial or the appeal courts.