An accountant has testified in a case where two have been charged with stealing Sh26 million from Mater Hospital.
Maureen Musumba, a doctor's payroll accountant at the Mater Hospital appeared before Senior Principal Magistrate Martha Mutuku and testified in a case where an accountant and a senior employee of Wananchi Telecom have been charged with stealing over Sh26,153,898 from Mater hospital.
“I am a doctors’ payroll accountant at the hospital and my duties includes preparing the payroll for medical consultants and other doctors who were offering services at Mater Hospital,” said Musumba.
Paul Owuor Omingo, an accountant at the hospital and Solomon Odeny have denied the charges where they are said to have committed the offense on diverse dates between July 12, 2012 and September 27, 2016.
The two are being represented by lawyer John Ogada.
They were initially charged with stealing Sh80 million before the prosecution amended the charges and reduced the amount.
In her testimony, Musumba said that after preparing the payroll, she would take it to be checked by the Chief accountant and thereafter by the Financial Controller for approval and final payment.
According to the prosecution, the theft apparently went on from the year 2012 to 2016 without the chief accountant, the financial controller or the auditors detecting any loss.
Musumba said that she had been asking Owuor to assist her with preparing the payroll and she suspected that it is at that stage where the theft was perpetrated.
But when cross examined by the defense lawyer John Ogada, the witness agreed that preparing the payroll was her work and not that of the first accused.
When Ogada asked her whether there was any evidence or document showing that Omingo was involved in the preparation of the payroll, she said there was no such evidence.
She said the final payment to the doctors was being done by the final controller and the trustees of the hospital, who were the signatories to the bank accounts and the online payment system.
The theft was allegedly done by online payment of money into the account of the accused persons.
Lawyer Ogada asked the witness whether Omingo had her password or had the hospital online payment password, but she answered that he did not have them.
As for the second accused Odeny, the witness said she did not know him as he was not a staff member at Mater hospital.
The hearing of the case is set to continue on June 11th 2019.
