Thieving employee wants to compensate BPC

Lebogang Mosikare | Thursday April 17, 2014 15:01

 

The 33-year-old Kenneth Maruapula admitted to the 35 counts of stealing by servant he committed between December 2010 and March 2012 after the facts of the offences were read to him on Wednesday.

The case was adjourned in the morning after defence counsel, Kenneth Obeng, applied that the accused wanted to compensate BPC for all the moneys he stole by virtue of his profession.

State attorney Atina Mandigo did not oppose the application. He said he would call an official from BPC to court to hear their reaction concerning the compensation application made by the defence.

Maruapula said he did not have legal justification to have stolen the money. “I am satisfied that your plea of guilty is unequivocal and I find you guilty in all counts,” said Siziba in his ruling. Mandigo told the court that Maruapula was a first offender. In mitigation on behalf of Maruapula, Obeng told the court that Maruapula has pleaded guilty to the offences thereby saving the court valuable time. Obeng said that the purpose of punishment was not to break offenders but to reform them. He said that punishment must fit the offence committed but should also take into account society’s interest. Obeng explained that there are three kinds of offenders-first, habitual and professional offenders in that order. “The accused is a first offender and is only 33-years-old. He is a single father to a son aged five years. He is preparing to marry the mother of his child in December this year.

 “He is also the sole breadwinner to his elderly mother, 55, who is sickly,” said Obeng.

He stated that Maruapula is also taking care of his other siblings and has never had any brush with the law except for the charges he is currently facing.

Said Obeng: “Prisons are crowded with hardened criminals and should the accused spend even one day in prison, he will become a hardened criminal.

“The court should have mercy on him and give him  a chance to redeem himself. He has saved the state a lot of money that was going to cater for witnesses who were going to come from far.”

He added: “The accused was poorly supervised. That is why he ended up getting tempted to commit the offences. He is also a commercial farmer who is providing this nation with food from his farm at Sebina. 

“He ventured into commercial farming and found that it was a very expensive project. He did not use any of the funds he took to buy luxuries like cars but he bought farm inputs that were going to advance his project.”

“He was tempted to steal in order to buy fertilizers and other inputs that were needed at the farm,” said Obeng. He also told the court to be lenient with the accused because he is a coach of a football team at Sebina that always takes part in constituency football tournaments.

“If the accused is given a custodial sentence, the team will cease to exist because there will be no one to help it with funds of running the team.

“The players may end up engaging in anti-social behaviours because they will have nothing productive to take part in. Also if he is imprisoned, his field will lie unused and BPC will not get any money from him.

“He has used all the money he stole to make improvements at the farm. I urge the court to give him a deterrent sentence that will haunt him for years.

 “In future (if he commits an offence of this nature) the court should send him to jail,” said Obeng. Obeng suggested that the court should send Maruapula to 18 months in jail wholly suspended for three years on condition that he does not commit similar offences.

Siziba asked if the accused will be in a position to pay the money on Wednesday to which the accused replied that he needed reasonable time.

The court adjourned to the afternoon for the two parties to reach an agreement regarding compensation