BY SAM ALFAN.
Tatu City has suffered a major blow in its attempt to block investigations over tax evasion claims .
This is after High Court allowed Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to investigate the multibillion real estate project in Kiambu Countyover claims of tax evasion and money laundering.
“The petition and Judicial Review cannot stand and are hereby dismissed with costs to the respondents,” ruled High Court Judge Esther Maina.
The Judge granted the anti-graft agency the go-ahead to investigate the offense of tax-evasion saying it has the powers to do so.
While dismissing the petition which sought to block EACC from the Tatu City and Kofinaf investigations, the Judge noted that the commission cannot be curtailed from carrying the investigations in the matter.
“In the upshot it is my finding that the investigative powers of Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission cannot be curtailed based on the grounds advanced by the petitioners or exparte applicants and accordingly the orders sought cannot be granted”, Judge ruled.
However, the judge ruled that EACC must only ask for copies of documents from the petitioners/exparte applicants or from any other person(s) but not the originals of those documents.
Tatu City and Kofinaf Company filed the petition in 2019, seeking to quash letters sent to the Lands PS seeking the State to place caveat or purchase warning on 33 pieces of land.
In the letters, the ethics commission also sought to restrict further transactions on the parcels, pending the outcome of investigations into alleged tax evasion and money laundering.
Tatu City said EACC has no powers to order issuance of caveats on tax disputes nor probe money laundering claims. The companies argued that claims of no-payment of taxes are civil in nature and not EACC’s mandate.
“It is my finding that in this case the matters being investigated transcend the dispute between the individual shareholders and the petitioners as they revolve around the commission of the offences of tax evasion and money laundering,” the judge said.
The commission stated that the probe was about Tatu city under valuing property that was later transferred to related firms to allow payment of lower stamp duty.
Through senior counsel Ahmednasir Abdullahi, Tatu City said if the issue was genuinely about stamp duty, there was a way to recalculate it and have the money paid. He said the firm was cleared by the collector of stamp duty and whereas the investigations relates to one parcel, EACC wanted to place caveats to 33 parcels of land.
Abdullahi said there is no reasonable basis why EACC sought for the documents including survey plans, maps, valuation reports, official searches.
