Maseru, May 18 The Court of Appeal has on Friday directed that the High Court should proceed with a criminal trial dealing with corruption, bribery and money laundering involving over M130 million belonging to the Disaster Management Authority (DMA), which it had remitted to the Magistrate Court for hearing.

The decision of the High Court came after one of the accused in the matter, Lefu Manyokole instituted an application for review in which he challenged a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to indict him to the High Court. The prosecution then appealed against the decision.

The Court of Appeal through its Acting Judges  Sakoane Sakoane, Petrus Damaseb and Philip Musonda  today ruled that the appeal is allowed adding that the order of the High Court is set aside and that the trial should continue in the High  Court. It remarked that once criminal charges are launched in the High Court, criminal proceedings are deemed pending.

The High Court has in its judgment stated that there is no evidence which suggests that the DPP acted reasonably and lawfully or otherwise in the decision to indict the applicant and his co-accused before the court. It indicated that the prosecution has also failed to place before the court the jurisdictional facts affecting public interests upon which the decision to indict the accused were based as a requirement under section 144 of Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.

It concluded that the Subordinate Court has the requisite resources to handle the case.

Manyokole had in the application argued that the decision by the DPP was irrational and malicious. He added that it offends his constitutional rights which are provided for under  section 12 of the Constitution of Lesotho. He pointed out that the DPP is enjoined by the law to make just and fair administrative decisions adding that in the present matter, she failed to do so. 

Manyokole is in this case charged together with high ranking public officers and business owners as well as four companies. They are charged with corruption, fraud, bribery and money laundering. They are alleged to have misused funds intended for rehabilitation of roads following a declaration of state of emergency in February 2021 after heavy floods destroyed road infrastructure.   
   
It is stated that the DMA was responsible for procurement of road maintenance and while Nonkululeko Zaly who is the first accused in the matter was aware of that, she engaged Kypros Engineering, one of the accused in the matter, as a consultant that would be in charge of procuring and managing all contractors to be engaged in the project. 
  
It is further alleged that Zaly, the late Makhotso Mahosi, Thabo Motoko, Lefu Manyokole and Mooka Namoli , acting in their individual official capacities as public officers, intentionally abused the functions of their offices and allowed their conduct to be influenced by prospects of benefits to themselves.   

It is added that sharing a common purpose, they committed the offences they are charged with together with their co-accused.