A woman was on Monday sentenced to two years behind bars conning a company close to Sh 7 M by posing as an NHIF officer.
Caroline Rukia Ngozi who was convicted of three counts fraud, obtaining money by false pretenses and impersonation was however given an alternative fine of Sh 650,000.
Rukia was charged in 2022 for presenting herself as an employee at NHIF and defrauding Lopes Limited Sh 6.9 million by pretending that she would secure the said company a tender at National Health Insurance Fund.
While sentencing her, the court declined to give her on a non-custodial sentence after the prosecution pleaded with the court to pass a sentence that would serve a deterrence effect given the seriousness of the offence.
The complainants lawyer had also pleaded with the court to pass a harsh sentence against her saying that the gravity of the offence demanded a harsh custodial sentence unlike what the probation had suggested.
During the hearing of the case, a businessman Suleiman Osman Noor told court that Rukia was introduced to him by a friend.
He said that his friend Ben, told him that Rukia being an ’employee’ of NHIF was to use her influence to link him to a lucrative Sh 238 million tender deal with the National Health Insurance Fund.
The Court heard that Rukia would later call Suleiman to demand Sh 6.9M in cash saying that the money was to ‘facilitate’ the procurement of the tender.
However, she disappear after receiving the money only for Suleiman to go the NHIF offices where he learnt that she was not an employee there.
In its judgement, the court ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convict Caroline, and she was convicted on all the three charges of Conspiracy to defraud Lopes Limited Sh 6.9M, fraudulently obtaining Ksh 6.9M from Lopes Limited and Personating an NHIF staff.
