By Wahome Thuku

Two bank managers are fighting to have a warrant of arrest issued against them by a Nairobi court lifted.

Former Ecobank Kenya chief executive officer Michael Monari and company secretary Wilfred Oroko are pleading with a court to lift the warrant issued last month.

The two, who are in Uganda and Togo respectively, have been charged with fraudulently obtaining registration of a charge on property in Nairobi without consent of owners.

Monari is currently the bank’s managing director in Uganda while Oroko was seconded to Ecobank Group head office in Togo as Senior Group Officer on August 11, last year. 

The two are accused of having registered the charge on a multi-million shillings property located on Mokhtar Dadar Street. The property was owned by businessman  Abubakar Habib, who passed away in June 2007.

He had secured Sh7.5 million loan from Ecobank (then Akiba Bank), which he had not repaid fully by the time of his death. The bank continued demanding loan arrears and interest, which reached Sh105 million and on December 15, 2008, it sold the property to a Mr John Ngururi for Sh60 million.

The warrants were issued by Nairobi Chief Magistrate Court on April 23, following an application by Criminal Investigations Department. Police applied for the warrant soon after the High Court in Nairobi dismissed an application by Monari and Oroko to have the Police Commissioner and Director of Public Prosecutions stopped from arresting, charging and prosecuting them.

Police claim the two bankers fled the country to avoid arrest and have enlisted the support of Interpol to track them down.

gainful employment

Ecobank said it has entered into negotiations with Mr Habib’s son Abubakar Mathubuti, who is the complainant, to resolve the matter out of court. But prosecutor Chief Inspector Robert Kyaa told the court that no such negotiations were going on and the two were still needed to answer the charges.

The application to lift the warrant was filed by the bank’s legal officer Caroline Mbenge.

“The two have never fled the country but are out of jurisdiction by virtue of their new jobs for gainful employment,” Ms Mbenge said in an affidavit. She said the accused had always presented themselves to CID on various dates when they recorded statements and were released.

But presiding magistrate Lucy Nyambura questioned why the accused were making the application before presenting themselves in court.The magistrate will give directions on the matter this morning.