The High Court has ordered MTN Uganda to pay more than Shs2.3 billion in damages to former senior manager Richard Mwami after finding that the telecom company maliciously instigated criminal proceedings against him, despite evidence clearing him in a multi-billion-shilling mobile money fraud case.
In his judgment, Justice Isaac Bonny Teko held that MTN was the ‘moving force’ behind Mwami’s prosecution and relied on an illegally obtained confession to implicate him, even though its own forensic investigations had exonerated him.
The court awarded Mwami Shs1.81 billion in special damages, Shs400 million in general damages and Shs100 million in exemplary damages, bringing the total to about Shs2.31 billion, excluding interest and legal costs.
Mwami, who worked as MTN’s Senior Manager for MTN Village Phone before becoming Senior Manager Public Access, was among the first officials to detect suspicious transactions on the company’s mobile money platform in December 2011. He reported the anomalies to senior management, triggering investigations into an alleged Shs16 billion fraud.
According to the judgment, MTN commissioned a forensic audit by Grant Thornton. The report, dated January 12, 2012, identified individuals linked to the fraud but did not implicate Mwami.
Despite this, Mwami was later arrested and charged after a statement was obtained from suspect Patrick Ssentongo. That statement was later ruled inadmissible by then Anti-Corruption Court judge Lawrence Gidudu, who found it had been obtained involuntarily and illegally.
Justice Teko found that MTN employees played a direct role in obtaining the statement and failed to rebut evidence linking them to the process.
‘The evidence considered as a whole satisfies the Court on the balance of probabilities that the 2nd Defendant was actuated by an improper motive in instigating the criminal proceedings against the Plaintiff and was not acting in good faith in the interests of justice,’ the judge held.
The court further found that MTN acted without reasonable and probable cause because its own investigations had cleared Mwami, who was in fact the whistleblower who uncovered the fraud.
‘No ordinary prudent and cautious person, armed with an exculpatory forensic audit that named the actual perpetrators without mentioning the Plaintiff, could have honestly believed on an objective basis that the Plaintiff was probably guilty,’ Justice Teko said.
The court also referenced Justice Gidudu’s earlier observations that Mwami had effectively been made a ‘sacrificial lamb’ despite being a potential prosecution witness.
The judge noted that criminal proceedings against Mwami began more than a year after investigations had concluded and after charges had already been brought against six other suspects.
‘The Plaintiff was not implicated in the original investigations that he himself initiated,’ the court observed.
The court linked the prosecution to severe personal and professional consequences suffered by Mwami. Evidence showed that following his arrest, the Bank of Uganda classified him as a reputational risk, leading to the termination of his employment with Mobile Money Africa Limited.
Justice Teko said Mwami endured public humiliation, loss of liberty, restrictions on travel and lasting damage to his career.
‘His career was destroyed when the Bank of Uganda classified him as a reputational risk and his employer terminated his employment as a consequence,’ the judge stated.
‘He carried for over two years the stigma of a serious criminal charge brought and maintained in bad faith against him by a former employer. His only transgression was to discover and report the very fraud that the employer later used as a pretext to destroy him.’
The Attorney General had also been sued in the matter, but the court struck out the claim against government after finding it had been filed outside the statutory limitation period.
In its final orders, the court directed MTN Uganda to pay the damages together with interest at 10 percent per annum from the date of judgment until payment in full, as well as the costs of the suit.