Drama At Nakawa Court As Chief Magistrate, His Juniors, Police Fail To Agree Over Exhibits In MTN Fraud Case

There was drama at the Nakawa Chief Magistrate’s court on Tuesday the 5th Oct, 2021, the day the MTN Vandalism case was set for the first hearing as the chief magistrate hijacked the case proceedings from the originally set presiding magistrate hence causing a stampede and the hearing hitting a snug. It should be recalled that when the fraudulent act by some employees of ZTE Chinese company contracted by MTN came up, an extensive investigations were launched after a long time of incurring loses of money caused by the unscrupulous behavior of some employees on MTN in connivance with the ones of their contractor ZTE, a Chinese company operation in Uganda. 

It was during this investigation that Mr. Jimmy Lubega Dungu an employee of ZTE was arrested red handed in the 130m single deal involving selling of MTN optic fiber cable (OFC) amounting to 16000m and a truck of other telecom equipment and materials.

All the exhibits were registered and kept at SID Kireka and police investigations set off. After the investigations, the file was taken to RSA (Residence State Attorney) Nakawa and it was fully sanctioned and the date for hearing set after the suspect appeared before Grade One magistrate, Her Worship Akello Irene 2 months ago and was released on bail and set to appear at a later date communicated to be 5th Oct, 2021 under the same magistrate. 

It was until Tuesday 5th Oct, 2021, when the court was supposed to sit and presided over by Her Worship Akello Irene but in turn of events the Chief Magistrate His Worship Nsingiza Douglas whose intentions desire to be investigated caused an injustice when he hijacked the proceedings from the presiding magistrate causing a stalemate in the proceedings. It all started at Her Worship Irene’s Chambers at 9:30am on the 5th Oct, 2021, when the respondent’s lawyers pleaded for an adjournment giving reasons/excuses that they had another court which didn’t mean well with the presiding magistrate since this communication wasn’t lodged into the same court before yet the date had been set a while ago.

It was in her wise council that she accepted their plea but since all witnesses (6) were all present in court, she adjourned the session up to 2:00pm to allow the respondent’s lawyers attend their own court session as per their plea.

In preparation for the intended hearing at 2:00pm, the investigators from SID Kireka made their way to the court premises with all the exhibits loaded onto two trucks and a double cabin pickup.

It was now at this point when the Chief Magistrate saw the volume of exhibits that he got out of his office and called the State Attorney handling the case asking her whether she had a court order allowing her to bring the exhibits to court.

At this point a verbal exchange ensued between the court proceedings to a standstill. In this new trend of events, all parties involved were left speechless after events that they had never experienced since their time in service.

It should also be known that the contractor ZTE Uganda has zeroed on exhibits in this case to the extent that they, through their lawyer wrote to court demanding for exhibits before even appearing in court despite them not being the complainant and all the exhibits carrying the inscription of the complainant (MTN).

All the drama at court lasted for about 4 hours on a very rainy day making everyone involved disgusted with the whole unprofessional manner of handling issues and it was until 5:00pm that the Chief Magistrate His Worship Nsingiza Douglas called his junior court officials, the lawyers, detectives and witnesses in the case to converge in court room for a briefing.

He informed the meeting of his position that he was making consultations with his superiors at High Court on who court should handover the exhibits and pushed the court to Wednesday 13th Oct, 2021 for response.

The exhibits were later returned to SID Kireka for safe custody which caused disturbances to investigators of doing double works.

It was very clear from the investigation work that the Chinese company ZTE works in manipulation of the system and power workmanship as evidenced when on of their translator Engineer Wilford Arigye, the integrated solutions manager was arrested for sharing sensitive information to non-parties and his phone was confiscated pending charges on him and producing him before courts of law. 

In related story, a one Paul Muwanga also an employee of ZTE Uganda has been summoned to police for interview and statement recording over the wealth he has rapidly accumulated for the time he has spent at the company and he is believed to have been working with the main suspect, Mr. Jimmy Lubega Dungu.