A man in Blantyre has been sentenced to 36 months imprisonment with hard labour after being found guilty of personating a public servant.
Blantyre Police Public Relations Officer Peter Mchiza says Kondwani Khumbanyiwa 32, was on June 7, 2021 arrested at National Registration Bureau (NRB) offices in the city after he was found pretending to be an employee of NRB assisting people to have their national Identity cards renewed.
MChiza says,” On 6 June, police received a report that there are people at the NRB offices who are claiming to be the employees of NRB and are duping robbing people of their money. Through the intelligence gathered, police detectives from Blantyre Police pretended to be the people seeking assistance at the NRB offices and in the process met Khumbanyiwa who promised to assist them. The officers arrested him and immediately a woman complained that the suspect had already pocketed money amounting to K5000 from her in the same fraudulent manner.”
According to Mchiza, Khumbanyiwa was therefore charged with the offence of personating a public servant and was taken to court. In court, Khumbanyiwa denied the charge which made the state to parade four witnesses and he was found guilty.
The state prosecutor Sub Inspector Chitandale of Blantyre Police Station prayed for a stiffer punishment to the offender citing that, the behaviour of Khumbanyiwa is creating bad pictures not only to National Registration Bureau but also to Malawi as Malawians are in a fight against any form of corrupt practices.
He therefore asked the court to consider slapping him with a stiffer punishment to deter would be offenders. The court agreed with the state and slapped the Khumbanyiwa to thirty-six months jail term.
Police in Blantyre are urging every Malawian that may come across such fraudulent people at NRB or any other place to report them to any nearest Police for action so that the practice comes to an end.
Kondwani Khumbanyiwa, comes from Ntchema village in Traditional Authority Ntchema in Chiradzulu district.
