A man wants Energy PS Joseph Njoroge charged over the Sh800 million procurement scandal at Kenya Power.
Justus Kimeli Rotich is questioning why Njoroge was omitted from the list of suspects in the scandal that led to prosecution of former CEO Ken Tarus, his predecessor Ben Chumo and other top managers.
In his petition before the the High Court, Rotich accuses the Director of Public Prosecutions of targeting certain individuals while leaving out people who were directly involved in the procurement process.
“Njoroge was the KPLC Managing Director from June 2007 to May 2013 when some of the alleged procurement offences were committed but the prosecution decided to leave him out which amounts to selective prosecution and abuse of power,” said Rotich.
He wants the court to compel the DPP and the Director of Criminal Investigations to investigate and charge the PS with the same offences facing Tarus and Chumo within the next three months.
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Rotich submitted that several witness statements he has reviewed have established the PS was part of the procurement process within the period the offences are alleged to have happened and should never have missed from the accused persons list.
In the event the DPP and the DCI fail to charge the PS, Rotich wants the court to allow him to institute private prosecution against Njoroge.
“Some of the offences are alleged to have taken place from August 2012 when Njoroge was at the helm of KPLC. It not possible to charge Chumo who took over from him in 2013 and Tarus who was appointed in 2017 and leave out the person who initiated the projects,” said Rotich.
Tarus and Chumo were charged in July last year, alongside 20 other top officials, with conspiracy to defraud, abuse of office, wilful failure to comply with procurement rules and conferring a benefit to a company that supplied sub-standard transformers.
Other accused were Company Secretary Beatrice Meso, Commercial Services Manager K.P. Mungai, Finance Manager Joshua Mutua, ICT Manager Abubakar Swaleh, Regional Coordination Manager Samuel Ndirangu and Supply Chain Manager Stanley Mutwiri.
Also charged were a couple James Njenga Muingai and Grace Wanjira Muingai, and their son John Muingai who are directors of Muwa Trading Company Ltd said to have received millions for supplying sub-standard transformers.
The charges stated that they conspired to commit an offence of economic crime by fraudulently acquiring public property between August 2012 and June 2018 through contracts for supply of sub-standard transformers.
