Former Nairobi County chief finance officer Jimmy Kiamba during his trial other city hall officials at Milimani law courts.
BY SAM ALFAN.
The trial of suspended Nairobi County chief finance officer Jimmy Kiamba and county secretary Lilian Ndegwa over alleged embezzlement of Sh17.9million kicked off at Anti-Corruption Court.
During the Monday hearing one of Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) investigating officer K.Mwangi identified some documents he retrieved from the office of Kiamba which contain instructions from him (Kiamba and Ndegwa) directing a Co-operative Bank manager at the city hall to pay some beneficiaries some Sh 700,000 for non-work done.
The witness told the trial magistrate Kennedy Biali that he was among a team of investigators who searched the office of Kiamba after receiving intelligent report over the alleged corruption at the
Nairobi County Government.
He said that during the search, they found some file in the shelve of Kiamba office. Mwangi said they retrieved some documents which contained some invoices with instructions to the manager at the
Co-operative Bannk at city hall which Kiamba was instructing the manager to pay some individuals beneficiaries money raging from Sh 700,000 to Sh 750,000.
The officer told the court that he found that there were irregularities in the procurement.
Kiamba and Ndegwa who have been charged with three other City Hall officials, have denied that they conspired to steal the cash through the false purchase of window blinds for the office of the chief
finance officer.
On September 15, 2015 the case hit a snag after defence lawyers claimed they had not been supplied with contract documents that the prosecution was using to argue its case.
Another witness Solomon Okello, the head of supply chain, who had earlier testified in the case, had initially linked the officials to a raft of irregularities in the procurement of the window blinds.
He said that they single-sourced the tender and went out of their way to award the supply contract to an undeserving entity.
“An open tender is preferred, the user department initiates the procurement, which is later approved by the chief finance officer for the department,” he said, adding that some documents were altered,
stamped by the county secretary and returned to the chief finance officer for approval.
“The witness presented a memo indicating that authority to incur expenditure for the purchase of window blinds had been approved.
It stated that the need had been occasioned by ongoing construction work taking place by his office,” Mr Okello said.
Prosecutor Mercy Gateru then led the witness through an 800-page document on procurement and subsequent withdrawal of Sh17, 902,728 from City Hall’s bank account.
However, defence lawyers complained that the prosecution had not supplied them with some of the documents and audit reports that the witness had referred to; arguing that cross-examining him would be “an exercise in futility.”
But Ms Gateru said it was a calculated move to have the trial delayed.
“The documents generated in respect to the transaction forming the basis of this case were exchanged in April. Moreover, the witness has testified on documents that speak for themselves,” she said while
objecting to the request for adjournment.
She said the lawyers were deliberately attempting to cause a further delay of the trial, having done so twice when the case was to be heard on June 23 and in August.
The prosecutor said she was also apprehensive that the documents the defence team was demanding “may not be existing” and that the witness had only commented based on what had been made available to him.
