By NORMA SIAME –
A PUBLIC service worker convicted of forging a university degree and a grade twelve certificate yesterday told a Mansa magistrate’s court it is against biblical principles to separate him from his wife by sending him to jail.
Heron Sachiyo, 40, who was employed as transport machinery overseer by Cabinet office in Mansa, calmly told Magistrate Yvonne Nalomba that the Bible said a couple once married should not be separated.
This, however, did not deter Ms Nalomba from handing a three-year sentence because Sachiyo by his actions had deprived more deserving candidates of a job when he used fake documentation to secure a job in a Government department.
This was in the case in which Sachiyo was convicted on four different counts.
In the first, he was charged with forgery of a grade 12 certificate which he purported to have obtained from Highridge Secondary School in Kabwe in 1988.
In the second count, he was charged with uttering a false document when he presented the said certificate to Luapula Province deputy permanent secretary Joyce Nsamba to gain employment as transport machinery supervisor while in the third count he was charged with forgery of a University of Zambia (UNZA) bachelor’s degree in mining science.
In count four, he was charged with gaining pecuniary advantage by false pretences for drawing a salary over several months amounting to K38, 820.
Before convicting him, the court had heard the testimony and received evidence from seven witnesses that included officials from the Examinations Council of Zambia, University of Zambia, Highridge Secondary School and Cabinet office in Mansa.
The grade 12 certificate showed the examination number appearing on the document actually belonged to a person identified as Sara Phiri and printed on paper usually used for grade nine certificates.
An official from UNZA said the institution kept records from as far back as 1963 and search in the university’s data bank had not yielded anything on Sachiyo.
Sachiyo in his mitigation had told the court that his parents and grandparents where dead prompting Ms Nalomba to ask him if he was trying to claim to be a 40-year-old orphan as members of the gallery chuckled.
The Magistrate sentenced him to 36 months on two of the four counts while he would serve 24 months on the remaining two.
