Ugandan TV personality Kazoora loses appeal in fraud case

David Kazoora, a Ugandan TV personality, will have to serve a year in jail and pay damages amounting to Rwf15 million after losing an appeal against a lower court decision. The celebrated emcee and television presenter, popularly known as Junior Kazoora, was convicted by the Nyarugunga Primary Court of using fraudulent means to shortchange his business partners, a decision he appealed. However, the Nyarugenge Intermediate Court upheld the ruling. Kazoora was not present when the Nyamirambo-based court made the ruling on Tuesday. In 2014, the prosecution dragged the Ugandan TV socialite to court, accusing him of deviating an advertising tender from Buddies Production (R) Ltd, in which he was a 50 per cent shareholder, to a new company he named ‘Buddies TV Ltd.’ By so doing, Kazoora undercut his partner and co-shareholder Nina Kagenza, by creating a parallel company, apparently bearing the same features, ‘Buddies TV Ltd’ and duped a client to award a tender to the new company, thereby fleecing his partner of dividends, according to prosecution. The deal was about a second promotional campaign by Airtel (Birahebuje II), whose value was estimated at around Rwf76 million which was mistakenly handed to ‘Buddies TV Ltd’ instead of Buddies Production (R) Ltd that had produced the first campaign. The other shareholders were represented by local events promoter Davis Kagenza, who had been the managing director of Buddies Productions (R) Ltd. Execution of judgement Explaining how the sentence would be enforced since the convict is not a Rwandan national and has no known assets in the country, spokesperson of the courts Emmanuel Itamwa said local bailiffs would have to work with the convict’s country of residence (Uganda). “It is more like to call another country’s judicial jurisdiction to validate a sentence that was issued against their citizen outside its border, so that justice can be served,” he said, adding that in that case, the requested country have rights to cross-check facts before enforcing the sentence. On the other hand, Itamwa explained, before enforcing the sentence, Uganda has to assess whether the decision handed fall in line with the country’s principles. Speaking to The New Times, Kagenza said they will have to wait for the three-month period as stipulated in the verdict before making any further decision. “There are pending and criminal liabilities that will need to be cleared before we get to know how to proceed. There are a lot of things that we will need to solve before we look at the commercial end of things,” he said. Kagenza said they were not that worried about enforcement since part of the payment (amounting to Rwf76 million) on the advertisement campaign from Airtel was yet to be disbursed pending the final decision of the court. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Ugandan TV personality Kazoora loses appeal in fraud case