Panic has gripped staff of Homa-Bay county government after the High Court froze the bank accounts of a firm associated with two employees suspected to have illegally benefited from multi-million – shilling contracts of the devolved unit. Hartland Enterprises Limited accounts were frozen for six months to allow the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to complete investigations. The account at the Cooperative Bank of Kenya holds Sh13.5 million. Hartland directors are James Mumali Oyuka and Mary Pauline Oduor. Weekly Citizen has information, after EACC move, Assets Recovery Authority also plans to move to court to repossess all properties associated with the duo including those registered in the name of their proxies. According the EACC petition, there is a need to preserve the money in the listed account for a period of six months to avoid it being dissipated, transferred, withdrawn, and or disposed thereby rendering the application and any intended recovery suit nugatory.
The EACC sleuths say the company has been procuring tenders and contracts from the county government and fraudulently acquiring public funds through fictitious or irregular contracts. Court documents seen by Weekly Citizen reveal, in July 2019, Hartland Enterprises entered into a contract with the county assembly for the construction of MCAs offices for Sh348 million. A bitter war erupted between the county and national government in March this year after it emerged the land belonged to the state. Surprisingly, even after being stopped, Hartland received payment of Sh26.9 million from the county government with the most recent being between June 30 and July 20 2021. According to EACC, preliminary investigations further revealed that Oyuka and Odur are employees of the county government of Homa-Bay as Public Health Technician and Community Nurse respectively.
And after receiving the payments, Oyuka then withdrew the money in cash or transferred it to personal accounts. EACC is tracing the flow of the said millions that is suspected to have landed in the hands of senior officials of the cartel behind the scandal. The investigations further revealed that huge amounts of money received into the accounts of the Oyuka are traceable from the county government. EACC says there is reasonable suspicion, in view of the apparent conflict of interest and abuse of office against the two that the awards of tender to a company owned by them were vastly inflated or were procured through fictitious or irregular contracts.
One name featuring prominently in the scandal is that of county secretary Isaiah Ogwe and finance, economic planning boss Nicholas Koriko.
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