Mike, who was being catered for by Mbale Senior secondary school in the
eastern part of the country, defrauded his sponsors millions of
shillings; he later got arrested by police, and jailed for years.
From
tens and hundreds of orphan students, Mike Twino, not his real name,
was lucky to be selected by his school, to have free education and other
benefits including accommodation, food and scholastic materials.
This
greedy student, wanted to get rich quickly without any struggle and
before completing his studies, thus, he ended up steeling from his
sponsors.
Like else where in the world, schools and other
institutions of learning, do reach agreements with Banks to receive and
collect school fees of the students on their behalf.
Normally at
the beginning of every term and every year, there are so many students
who visit various branches of the bank to pay their fees.
Mike
having developed mafia skills, it is alleged that he used to go to the
bank, copy the current stamps used by the cashiers on tills that day,
and then 'help' those students who never wanted to make long queues.
Another
unreliable source has it that, it was an 'inside job', where by some
staff members within the Bank, conspired with this student Mike.
It
is urged that this stone hearted orphan, could be fed with vital
information from the Bank, thus, he used these tips to defraud his
fellow students and the school millions of shillings in cash.
Many
students as if bewitched, entrusted their school fees with Mike, who In
return gave them the already stamped bank slips from his office and not
the Bank.
The school Bursar and the students, could not differentiate between the true Bank slip from the one stamped by Mike's office.
The
school Bursar visited the Bank to check for the balance, unfortunately,
there was no money on account, and the records at school showed that a
huge number of students had settled their outstanding amounts.
The school was now faced with a problem of meeting its obligations, like paying its staff members and so many other costs.
Meetings
after meetings where held, to ascertain what is really going on in the
office of the school Bursar, eventually they decided to call some of
the students to help them in the investigations.
All those
students who were summoned, mentioned one person 'Mike' the orphan, who
helped them to 'deposit' the money in the Bank.
The school started its internal investigations, and a case was reported to the near by police station.
Few
days later, Mike was rounded up at his premises unaware. The Police
discovered hundreds and thousands of forged Bank slips, stamps and so
many other materials.
He was charged in the court of law,
pleaded guilty, and sentenced to 8years in prison for theft, and
defrauding the school millions of shillings.
To sum it up, many
of Africa's Banks still lag behind in technology, save a hand full of
them in South Africa, and may be in the north and west of the continent.
With just a simple installed program, fraud cases can be minimized or wiped out completely.
Any kind of transaction made on a particular account in the Bank, has
to be easily and quickly detected, and an instant message be sent to the
client for any eventuality and quick response.
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