Michael Kamau to be charged over Sh33m scam

Former Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau will have a date in court next week to face fresh charges of abuse of office and irregular use of public funds.

Anti-corruption court chief magistrate Douglas Ogoti summoned Kamau to appear in court on May 30 after detectives failed to locate and arrest him during a raid at his Karen home on Tuesday.

Kamau’s two co-accused Mwangi Maingi and Nicholas Ng’ang’a however presented themselves to court and were charged with abuse of office and giving misleading documents in relation to the redesign of Kamukuywa-Kaaptama-Kapsokwony-Sirisia Road in Bungoma leading to the loss of Sh33 million.

According to the charge sheet, the three who were senior officials at the ministry of roads between 2007 and 2008, arbitrarily authorised the redesigning of the road when it had already been done by Engiconsult Limited at the cost of Sh33,303,600 thereby subjecting the public to pay twice.

Maingi was alleged to have abused his office between July 2007 and March 2008 when he was the chief engineer for roads while Ng’ang’a was the resident engineer.

The charges stated that their actions resulted to loss of public funds when they sidelined the company which had already been paid in undertaking the road’s redesign.

Maingi faced additional charges of giving misleading documents, where it was alleged that he lied to the ministerial tender committee in the ministry of roads that the implementation of an agreement with Kundan Singh Construction Limited had no cost implications to the government.

Maingi and Ng’ang’a denied the charges and were released on a cash bail of Sh500,000 each or a Sh2 million bond.

Kamau will face two charges of wilful failure to comply with applicable procedures and guidelines relating to management of public funds and abuse of office.

The charges stated that as a person responsible for magement of public revenue, he ignored the design of Kamukuywa-Kaptama-Kapsokwony-Sirisia Road done by Engiconsult Limited and irregularly allowing the resident engineer to redesigned the same road.

The second  charge states that Kamau abused his authority by causing the road to be redesigned without involving Engiconsult Consulting Engineers Limited.

This is the second time Kamau and his co-accused are being charge in relation to the controversial redesign of the road.

They were first charged in June 2015 but the former CS challenged his prosecution at the High Court on grounds that the charges were unconstitutional.

The High Court declined to stop the charges prompting him to move to the Court of Appeal where Appellate Judges Milton Makhandia, William Ouko and Kathurima M’Inoti ruled that the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission was not properly constituted in 2015 to institute the charges.

The Appellate Court however stated that the commission still had the power to carry out investigation and charge him afresh once it is properly constituted.