The Mzuzu Senior Resident Magistrate’s Court has convicted three former employees of Ecobank Malawi Limited over a K129.9 million fraud at Mzuzu Ecobank Branch between May and June 2022.
The three, namely John Madalitso Chizunza, Peter Chiwaula and Kelvin Maseko, were charged with six counts of fraudulent false accounting and theft by servant contrary to sections 335(a) and 278 of the Penal Code.
In his ruling, senior resident magistrate Ashford Harawa said he found the three guilty and will hear the parties’ submissions on sentence on November 19 2024 before meting out his sentence on a date to be advised.
The court heard that for a long time, Chizunza was in a money lending business (katapila), where he was using Ecobank’s money to lend out to people, especially contractors who did not have the necessary requirements to qualify for the bank’s official loans.
It was stated in court on Friday that Chizunza and Chiwaula in May and June 2022 were branch manager and bank teller, respectively, and with intent to defraud, falsified bank account number 5475000003881 belonging to Sanaa Cash ‘n’ Carry.
The two allegedly transferred from the account K110 million without the knowledge and authority of the account holder, in the process defrauding Ecobank K110 million.
The court learnt that on June 3 2022, Maseko withdrew K19.9 million from Zanak Pharmaceutical’s bank account but the transaction was not authorised by Zanak forcing the bank to refund the misappropriated amount to Zanak.
In an interview yesterday, private practice lawyer Gabriel Chembezi, who is representing Ecobank Malawi Limited in the case, said he was satisfied with the judgement, describing it as “justice served”.
He said: “By virtue of the above-mentioned conduct, the bank was therefore defrauded of K129.9 million as a result of the fraudulent false accounting by the accused persons herein.
“The fraudulent f a l s e accounting in this matter was, therefore, for purposes of concealing the offence of theft by servant as the deficit in the vault had been caused by Chizunza’s misappropriation of K129.9 million of the bank’s money.”
There was no immediate comment from Chizunza’s lawyers from John Tennyson, Kawelo Lawyers.
Trial commenced in October 2022 and the State paraded 15 witnesses to secure conviction.
