Prominent Lusaka lawyer Nellie Mutti has been arrested and charged with 33 counts relating to theft and forgery in connection the payment of more than K35 million to former government employees.
Ms Mutti of Lukona Chambers was arrested in Lusaka today but released on police bond waiting for court appearance on March 23, 2014.
Assistant police spokesperson, Rae Hamoonga confirmed in an interview in Lusaka today that Ms Mutti had been charged with forgery contrary to section 342 of the Laws of Zambia.
“She has also been charged with uttering of a contract as well as 31 counts relating to theft which is contrary to section 272 of the Laws of Zambia,” Mr Hamoonga said.
The arrest of Ms Mutti comes barely weeks after the police recorded a warn and caution statement from the legal practitioner after being accused of stealing more than K35,951,705.08.
The money was part of the Government release for 3,523 retirees that left their employment under the voluntary separation in late 1990s.
Ms Mutti represented the 3,523 retirees under the Voluntary Separation Association of Zambia (VSAZ) in a long protracted legal battle to claim the pensioners’ benefits.
She won the case on behalf of the retirees and the government recently started paying the pensioners’ through her law firm.
However, it is alleged that 751 former retirees could not claim their benefits and Ms Mutti pocketed all the money instead of returning it to Government.
Ms Mutti has also been dragged to court by the former civil servants who are now demanding for a refund after accusing the legal practitioner of making irregular deductions from their money.
According to the claim, the deductions by Ms Mutti were in three categories namely, 10 per cent legal fees, 10 per cent handling fees and 16 per cent VAT.
The deductions were made from the K468,161,166.23 that was released by the government for the retirees through Lukona Chambers after they had a 2002 judgment that went in their favour.
The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) said recently that its disciplinary committee as well as the Legal Practitioners’ Committee were currently sitting to decide whether there was any professional misconduct by Ms Mutti over the same matter.
HA!
The whole zambia is corrupt. Arrest everyone!
@Nubian, you so romantic, so Who is going to arrest them, the Chinese? Sounds like you are recommending deleting Zambia.
+10+10+16 ikozi 36%.
So if government gave K100pin, Nellie takes out K36pin, and the poor old office orderly sign for = K64pin. That is brutality, jail sentence is too soft on Nellie, kumulowa fye.
how can she charge so muvh money. from 3000 plus, if you calculate 10 percent from each plus another 10 percent. is that not cheating of the worst kind. but in our country this is normal.
Its sounds like clear theft because VAT is deducted at work through pay slips etc. so why deduct some more. Thats theft unless the funds have been remmitted to ZRA in which cae it was wrong it means the penssioners paid VAT twice. Ooops the firm deducted 36% and im sure the govt depts at source deducted 34-36% total deductions 70% while. Then paid to pensioners about 30% if they spend it duty is 15% (5%)at the end they will benefit somethign like 25% ahhaaha.
Not fair someone need to do the calculations. For legal and handling fees was their a contract or not. If not she is in hot soup, provided corruption won’t come in. I hope to see the first lawyer in chimokaila. Next should be doctors for deaths at UTH, then engineers for failed roads, buildings etc, then accountants all everyone…
Regarding VAT, I may be wrong. I think VAT should be 16% of handling and legal fees combined. If Handling fee is say K50 and legal fee is also K50, that brings the amount deducted to K100. Then VAT of K100 at 16% is K16. So the total amount deducted from the employee comes to K116.00. She then pockets K100 and pays K16 to ZRA!!
In Zambia, it seems very few professions enjoy the media coveted title of “Prominent…..”; we always hear about Prominent Lusaka Lawyer, Prominent Kabwe Businessman, Prominent politician, Prominent Broadcaster
I have never heard of; Prominent Lusaka Accountant, Prominent Livingstone Engineer, Prominent plumber, nishani akapatulula ba media!!!
Kekeke awe mwee, these the Selected One!? Awe sure you are a “Prominent Commentator”.
Olo prominent bus driver…lol!
What about “prominent Lusaka prostitute”.
That’s how corrupt MDD had became,all these revelations are only available now,it’s sad I had alot of respect for this proffessional girl,if for sure she errored PF will visit her.
I for one has great respect for the PF. They re open, they get insulted daily, they don’t rig elections and they re busy repairing our country in silence. God bless this party.
Awe balebomba mwe!
The love of money: all the pedigree goes up in a puff of smoke
I would first like to see what she says exactly or at least see the contract that they signed. The thing is those retirees i believe had no money and she might have taken them on and most of the time when it comes to that , Lawyer fees seem very high. Even in the Western countries people with no money to hire a lawyer and when they win a case about 50% of the payment going to the person would have been taken by the lawyer. Its sad if she indeed stole that money both part of their payment as well as the 751 people.
She must be jailed,by the way what happened to that headteacher who reported K945,000 “stolen” from his school? George Tembo.Update please,too much stealing pa zed
It would also be interesting to see the judgement. In most of these cases, the court usually directs the losing party to bear the legal cost of the winning party. if that was the case, then She may have also been paid for her legal service by the government. The second thing that would be interesting ton verify is how much VAT she remitted for ZRA against what she collected from the clients.
I REPEAT:
I FIND IT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND HOW ALMOST ALL LAWYERS IN ZAMBIA
ARE RICH. WHAT DO LAWYERS DO TO MAKE SUCH LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY?
WHAT DO THEY PRODUCE AND SALE?
SOMETHING MUST BE WRONG SOMEWHERE, AND WHAT YOU HAVE READ IS A TIP
OF THE ICEBERG.
MIND YOU IT IS ONLY LAWYERS WHO ARE AT OPPOSITE SIDES IN COURT OVER AN
OBVIOUS CASE. REASON …… MONEY.
There’s more to this story than what is being reported here. The ZWD has been reporting about Kabimba and his friends’ scheme and scam to steal and divert this same money. This is some kind of pay back by Kabimba crooks.
I am not surprised about Nelly’s arrest. The woman loves money. We lost money through bogus investments in Singapore in which she colluded with these Singaporean guys, selling us hedges funds. We were fooled in believing the deal of 110% return on principal investment every six months. Nelly Mutti, was their legal head behind it. How stupid of us to have believed them. Baane, we lost our investment and up to now we can’t find those Singaporeans. When we inquire their guarantor (Nelly Mutti), she always promises to look into it. We need our money too Ba Mutti.
“She has also been charged with uttering of a contract….” Can someone help. What manner of an offence is this? Or is this supposed to be ALTERING of a contract?
Politics at work. Lets wait and see. Something is fishy here. Lawyer vs Lawyer.
The ZWDog reported a different take that implied Nellie never even got anywhere near that cash and that some GRZ-PF guys were involved. Additionally a lawyer who took charge ran aground financially (sued Nellie for defamation). Will be interesting to get a round story on this matter…
I do not want to judge the lady but lawyers cannot be trusted the majority are corrupt. In layman language they steal from poor people.
The Good Lawyers are the ones in the street because ZIALE threw them out.
“Uttering a contract” @Kano nga ebo, simply means “Speaking the contract!” It is ZamEng.