The Ethics and Anti Corruption commission has received orders from the court, to recover Sh8.6 million, from a former head of procurement at the former Ministry of Local government, which was part of the Sh283 million, fraudulently acquired in the purchase of public cemetery land, by the defunct city council of Nairobi.
The Commission had sued Chief Finance Officer at the office of Deputy Prime Minister Herman Stevens Chavera and head of procurement at the Ministry of Local Government Boniface Okerosi Misera for benefiting from the procurement fraud.
In the court documents seen by naihaps.com, the commission told the court that the two had received Sh10 million through a bank account linked to a private citizen, Onyiego Gichana, and that the Commission had managed to recover Sh1.3 million from the two men, including another 100,000 paid to the private citizen, leaving the balance of Sh8.6 million.
In its suit, EACC said the defendants had jointly and unjustly enriched themselves with the money, which should be recovered from them as restitution to the city council.
In their defense, however, the first defendant, Herman Chavera denied involvement in any fraudulent activity in relation to and or sale transactions involving the tender for the purchase of the land, stating he was not privy to any fraud committed by the tendering committee.
He added that the tender award and the sale transaction were never nullified and hence had no reason to suspect that there was any illegal transaction.
The second defendant, Boniface Misera, who was the then head of procurement at the Ministry of Local Government on his part, also denied involvement saying he was a stranger to the stated sale agreement and tender transactions and did not receive any money from the payment made for the purchase of the land.
In his judgment, delivered on the 12th of September, Judge John Onyiego of the Nairobi Anti-Corruption Court ordered that EACC obtain the Sh. 8.6 million plus interest fees from Boniface Misera only and that the Sh. 1.3 million already recovered remain in the commission’s custody as money recovered in advance.
The suit against the first defendant was however dismissed as the commission did not tender concrete evidence to connect him with the money received from the second defendant.
So far the commission has recovered Sh. 9.45 million in a case won against a Naen Ranch Limited and its director Maina Chege and another Sh. 8 million recovered from one Stephen Kamau Githinji. This now brings the total amount recovered in this case to Sh. 26 million.
This is the third recovery suit completed in court, out of the nine suits filed by the anti graft body, to recover the funds.
