A Magistrate court has jailed 3 Wajir County government officials for 4 years over stealing Sh26 million.
The three Ahmed Omar, Daud Abdullahi, and Jeff Mworia are accused of withdrawing the money from a KCB Bank account in 2018. Wajir County Governor Mohamed Mohamud testified that ‘he did not issue instructions for the withdrawal of Sh26 million and was unaware of a request by the Finance executive for an overdraft facility of the amount at KCB, Wajir”.
Anti-corruption chief magistrate Teresia Murigi ruled the prosecution had proved its case against the three. She said that Omar had the mandate to approve how many signatures were required to withdraw the cheque from imprest.
“First accused issued instructions on the basis of the approval of the accused person on the money. The bank acted on the instruction of their client on who to remove and who to add as a mandatory signature,” the judgment reads.
In the judgment, the trio can pay a fine of Sh800,000 to escape jail.
Some sections of the Wajir residents believe that the magistrate was compromised as the sentence was lenient.
“What a cooked judgment. The Magistrate was compromised and gave this guy lenient sentence after stealing 26M from Wajir county”, lamented a Wajir County resident.
The magistrate ruled the bank could not be faulted as Sh26 million was withdrawn on October 9, 2018, from the imprest account.
Additional charges
Abdullahi is facing a separate count of abuse of office and failure to manage public property.
He is accused of committing the offense between October 5 and October 9, 2018, by unlawfully authorizing Mworia as a sole signatory of the Wajir imprest account.
Omar also faces a separate charge of abuse of office in which he is alleged to have used his position to confer a benefit to Mworia by purporting that the County Executive Committee had appointed him the signatory of the imprest account.
Mworia faces four other counts, including the fraudulent acquisition of public property.
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