Two security men convicted for theft of fuel

By Robert Ariaka

Arua. September 11, 2012.

Two security staffs of Radio Pacis were on Monday convicted of theft of fuel by the grade one magistrate in Arua.

Court presided over by the grade one magistrate Mathew Langolith heard that on the night of August 18, 2012, Guma Philip and Andima Hurry all security officers of radio Pacis were on duty that fateful night and were caught siphoning six jericans of fuel from the station generator. 

They were arrested with six jerrycans of fuel which they had siphoned from the station generator and hid it in a nearby bush.

According to an eye witness, Dominic Alule assistant technical person who is their supervisor at the station, the two were found ready handed stealing the fuel from the generator as the third person an outsider suspected to be a boda boda cyclist was tying some jerrycans filled with fuel at around 2:00am.

They were brought to police in the morning and a file was opened after which they were brought to court from where court remanded them for three weeks.

Both the accused persons pleaded guilty in court and the grade magistrate decided to sentence them to three months in jail and gave them an option to pay a fine of one hundred thousand shillings if they will want to be released.

The grade one magistrate said the sentence was lenient because the accused persons pleaded guilty and accepted to have committed the crime, he also said both were first offenders and had no criminal record in the courts of law.

They immediately paid the one hundred thousand shilling each and were set free from court since the stolen jerrycans of fuel were recovered.

Meanwhile Radio Pacis dismissed the two employees from the station as resolved by the disciplinary committee not to retain such staff with criminal records and failure to protect the stations property as security personnel of the station.

In 2008, two XL motorcycles were stolen from the station where one was stolen from Annex Gardens in the hands of program manager Sam Anecho who used it the fateful day and another XL was stolen in Congo in the hands of the programs manager.

In the same year, 400 liters of diesel was siphoned from the drum inside the yard of the station and two watch men were dismissed in relation to the loss of the fuel. Other reports that time indicated that, the heads of department in the station were implicated but they sifted the blame on the juniors.

The station manager Sherry Mayer was left in grief in 2009 when 1500 US dollars was disappeared from her residential home and the same year, the station director Fr. Tonino lost 3 million from his officer drawer. Within the same year, 1.5million disappeared from the station director’s office.

In 2010, the head of technical department Daniel Gwok was implicated in the loss of 237,000 from the Media center printer section where he went and picked the keys from the watch men without signing one Sunday evening.

The station also lost a land cruiser Prado in 2010 in the hands of Steven Jingo when he was in Mbuya Kampala after the station manager and the director handed over the vehicle to him to be sold.

The above cases of loss in the station have to date not been recovered and fingers have been pointed towards the heads of department but the watchmen have always suffered the consequence.