NAIROBI, Kenyan, Nov 15 – The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has been granted orders by the High Court freezing assets worth Sh216 million belonging to Peter Maina Njehia, Senior Manager, Supply Chain at the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Limited (KETRACO).
Justice Esther Maina said that the Commission had established a prima facie case with a probability of success to warrant the issue of injunction orders pending the hearing and determination of the forfeiture proceedings.
The Commission went to Court following investigation of allegations of unexplained wealth, unethical conduct, bribery and conflict of interest against the KETRACO official.
Investigations undertaken by the Commission established that between January 2010 and March 2021, which period Njehia was reasonably suspected of engaging in corruption, he acquired assets worth Sh278 million against his known total legitimate income of Sh40.2 million for the said period thereby resulting to assets disproportion of Sh237.8 million.
Investigations established that at the time of acquisition of these assets, Njehia had received funds individuals and institutions that had secured tenders with his employer.
In one instance, Sieyuan Electric Company Limited which had been awarded a tender by KETRACO deposited a total of Sh3 million in two bank accounts belonging to Njehia’s spouse.
Similarly, Njehia received Sh400,000.00 and Sh85,000.00 respectively from Jooyato Surveys Limited and Jacob Oyato, a Director of Jooyato Surveys Limited at a time the said company had been awarded several contracts by KETRACO.
During execution of search at his premises in Nairobi, an amount of Sh1,020, 000.00 in cash was seized from his motor vehicle. The source of the said cash could not be reasonably ascertained.
The Commission, therefore, pursuant to sections 26 & 55 (2) of ACECA on 25th April, 2022 issued a Notice to Njehia to explain the disproportion in his assets with his known legitimate source(s) of income.
The Commission received a response on May 17, 2022 which response was considered and after analysis a cumulative asset of value of Sh21.4 million was found to have been satisfactorily explained leaving out an unexplained disproportion of Sh216.3 million.
Following his inability to explain the source of assets worth Sh216.3 the Commission on September 14, 2022 issued a demand Notice requiring him to remit the above unexplained assets to the Commission for return to the public.
He failed to comply with the demand to surrender the assets prompting the Commission to institute recovery proceedings.
The Commission on September 22, 2022 filed a suit at the High Court in Nairobi seeking forfeiture of the listed assets valued at Sh216.3 million to the government for being proceeds of crime.
Filed contemporaneously with the forfeiture suit was an application under Certificate of Urgency for injunction orders to forestall any dealings with the unexplained assets pending the hearing and determination of the forfeiture proceedings.
The EACC application came up for ruling on November 24, 2022 before Maina where the Court ruled in favour of the Commission to preserve the assets pending the hearing and determination of the substantive forfeiture suit.
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