TWO former employees of Punjas Solomon Limited who stole cartons of cooking oil from the company have been sentenced to four months imprisonment yesterday.
This followed the guilty pleas entered by Eric Ramo and John Liuga on a previous court appearance to the charge of larceny by servant.
Principal Magistrate Fatima Taeburi when handing down the sentence told the accused a sentence imposed must be able to deter you from re-offending.
She said the sentence must also be able to send a message clearly to the society that our Courts do not accept practices whereby people steal from their employees.
“There is a need for both specific and general deterrence in these types of cases,” Ms Taeburi said.
She then quoted from a remark from a past case, which stated, “an employee, by the nature of his employment, always has the opportunity to steal from his employer’s property.
“The public service and all commercial undertakings can only function properly if they can be rely on the loyalty and honesty of the people they employee.”
The court heard both men were employed by Punjas Solomon Limited in 2014 and have now been terminated.
Liuga was employed as a driver and Ramo, a carrier of Punjas Solomon Limited.
Sometimes between 24 March, 2015 and 13 April 2015, the two men went to the company’s area at night.
It was heard that Eric took out a key to a storage container and opened the container.
“At that time, John was standing outside and was on the lookout.
“In the container were cartons of cooking oil.
“Both of you took out five cartons of oil from the container and left in a car.
“The value of good stolen is $640.06,” the court heard.
Ms Taeburi agreed with the prosecutor that there is an element of trust here since both of the accused are employees of the complainant and have breached that trust.
She said she found the offence is premeditated.
“From the facts it is obvious there were some pre-planning between the two of you before you went to the company area that night to commit the offence.”
The property was not recovered.
Ms Taeburi also took into account the fact that both have entered early guilty pleas, have spent sometimes in custody, first time offenders, and both are young men.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
