Zimbabwean sentenced for fraudulently obtaining Omang

Lebogang Mosikare | Tuesday August 14, 2018 13:54

 

Some of the offences end up being discovered after people who were assisted to obtain the identity cards fraudulently want to renew them or after the police receive tip-offs from members of the public. 

On Tuesday, a Motswana woman from Tonota landed in hot soup after she helped a Zimbabwean woman to obtain the national identity card under false pretences. 

Onosi Moradu, 52, was sentenced to six months in jail for helping Tracy Seto Moradu, 39, to obtain Omang fraudulently. 

On January 15, 2010, Onosi furnished the registrar at the Department of Civil and National Registration in Tonota with information claiming that Tracy was her daughter while she knew that to be false. 

Onosi’s action, the police said, caused the registrar to issue Tracy with an Omang. 

Magistrate Amantle Lungisani sentenced Onosi to six months in jail wholly suspended for six months on condition that she pays P500 within a month. 

For her transgressions, Tracy was sentenced to two years in jail wholly suspended on condition that she pays P2,000 within a month. 

Before she was sentenced, Tracy, who once stayed in Mozambique pleaded with the court to have mercy on her when sentenced. 

“I came to Botswana in 1991 and I don’t have anywhere to go.  I plead with the court to be lenient when sentencing me,” she pleaded. 

However, the court did not heed Tracy’s pleas as it also ordered that her nationality should be revoked adding that she should be repatriated to Zimbabwe should she manage to pay the P2,000 fine or after serving her jail term. 

At the end of the sentence, magistrate Lungisani advised Onosi and Tracy to appeal their convictions and sentences at the High Court in 14 days if they were not pleased with them.