This kind of justice sulks
October 7, 2014
Anybody who stole taxpayers’ money under the infamous Cashgate should now stop worrying themselves to death for fear of long sentences with hard labour behind bars if they are eventually found guilty.
They can now sleep soundly in peace as all they need to do is quickly enter a guilty plea and make sure they organise themselves to pay back the money the prosecution will have on the charge sheet and all they will get is a pittance three years behind bars.
In prison terms, that could even be less than the three years and if they show good behaviour, they might even get a presidential pardon along the way.
By sentencing Tressa Senzani, who stole a whopping K63 million from poor taxpayers and used it for personal gain, to a feeble three-year jail term, the above is the impression that Judge Ivy Kamanga has created in some of us.
It has left some of us with the view that while the general citizenry was maddened and enraged by the unprecedented level of colossal and shameless theft of public money from national Treasury, the Judiciary in general wants to remain aloof and indifferent in the ivory tower of its own world insulated from the rest of us, the lesser souls.
On the whole, I find the argument which Senzani’s defence put up and which somehow the judge has swallowed hook, liner and sinker, that because the former Tourism Ministry PS, confessed and then returned the money, she deserves a lenient sentence, quite hollow in nature.
Accepting that you are guilty and that you stole people’s money cannot in any way negate the seriousness of the crime in the first place. It might just mean the evidence against you is so overwhelming that there is no chance in hell that you can escape the long arm of the law and so you decide not to put up a fight, hoping to get some mercy as in the present case.
Senzani was the most senior civil servant in a ministry. In fact, she was the controlling officer entrusted with keeping the kitty and she abused that trust that the people of Malawi had in her to steal from them a cool K63 million.
This is not small change. In fact, it is an annual budget and appropriation for some departments in government.
The judge should have set her as an example for all other civil servants to see. It could have set the right tone for other Cashgate cases currently raging in courts throughout the country.
It has not and this kind of justice sulks. I am aware that court cases and sentencing are not an exact science, but there should be some semblance of consistency to let us, the plebeians, still have confidence in the Judiciary to dispel any notion that prisons are the preserve of the poor with no names.
There are countless people gnashing teeth in our prisons for petty crimes. Yet white-collar crimes are doing more damage to this country than the petty criminals that courts send to prisons every day.
Cashgate offered an opportunity for the Judiciary to send the correct signals to thieves in government that are partly responsible for our country to still be poor 50 years after independence.
Senzani’s mere three years in jail is a far cry from that.
