Pay my Sh500,000 debt or I jail you, businessman tells MP Salasya

Mumias East MP Peter Kalerwa Salasya. [Benjamin Sakwa, Standard]

A Kakamega businessman Robert Malenya Lutta has moved to the Kakamega Small Claims Court (SCC) to compel Mumias East MP Peter Kalerwa Salasya to pay him a debt of Sh500,000.

Through the case filed in court on Monday afternoon by lawyer Edwin Wafula, the man says he faithfully loaned the MP the amount in the hope that he would refund it in two months' time but has since become elusive.

"Being a friend for so many years I accepted to advance him the amount on December 13 last year (2022)," he says in his court papers.

"On the material day, I proceeded to the Kenya Commercial Bank - Mumias Branch where I made a direct transfer of the Sh500,000 to the personal account of the MP who promised to refund the amount within a period of two months from the date of the transaction."

He regretted that the MP has since failed, refused, neglected and ignored to refund the amount despite frequent reminders.

He now wants the SCC to compel the first-time MP to refund the money with interest and pay for the cost of the case.

Lutta has attached the bank transfer details which show the money changing the accounts from his to that of the Mumias East MP done in the KCB branch in the neighbouring Mumias West constituency.

He says that he is ready to employ the Civil Procedure Act (Section 38) that allows the imprisonment of debt defaulters to commit the MP to civil jail should he be found guilty of defaulting on the debt and stay put on not repaying it.

In the laws it costs at least Sh 900 to hold one in custody for a month for defaulting on a debt, an amount Luitta said he is willing to pay.