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Former TRA Commissioner Kitilya released after paying Sh1.5 billion compensation

By  The Citizen Reporter

What you need to know:

The five accused persons  have been in custody since 2016 facing charges of leading organized crime, forgery, uttering false documents, use of documents intended to mislead principal, obtaining money by false pretences, money laundering and occasioning loss to the government

Dar es Salaam. Former Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) Commissioner General Harry Kitilya and four other co-accused persons were today August 26, released after paying Sh1.5 billion compensation to the government after they entered a plea bargain with the office of the Director of Public Prosecution.

The five accused persons  have been in custody since 2016 facing charges of leading organized crime, forgery, uttering false documents, use of documents intended to mislead principal, obtaining money by false pretences, money laundering and occasioning loss to the government.

They pleaded guilty to one count of occasioning loss to the government of some $6 million, out of a total of 58 charges they were facing before the High Court's Corruption and Economic Crime Division.

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In addition to the compensation, Judge Immaculate Banzi also ordered them to either pay a fine of Sh1 million each or serve six months jail term.

Others who being held alongside Mr Kitilya were Shose Sinare, former Head of Investment Banking at Stanbic Bank, Sioi Solomon, former chief of legal affairs to the bank, Bedason Shallanda, who is Commissioner for Policy Analysis-Debt with the Ministry of Finance and his Assistant Alfred Misana.

Mr Kitilya alone was facing 43 money laundering counts, whereas Shose Sinare , (Miss Tanzania 1996) was charged with two counts of forgery, two counts of uttering false documents and five money laundering counts.

The accused are alleged to have committed the offence between February 2012 and June 2015 in different areas of Dar es Salaam and outside the country when the government was in the process of attaining a loan of $550 million from Standard Bank in London.

Until yesterday night when the court was finalizing the sentence, DDP informed a sister paper Mwananchi that the accused had paid a total of Sh900 million in a special account at the Bank of Tanzania (BoT).

Their lawyers revealed that the accused will finalize the amount including the fine before submitting the receipt in court for it to issue a certificate that will release them in prison.

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