Puzzle of prison cleaner earning Sh20k salary, but owns Sh257m worth of property

A prisons supervisor who allegedly embezzled Sh257 million meant for inmates' food is in trouble after the High Court froze his properties.

Lady Justice Esther Maina has restrained Eric Kipkurui Mutai, a cleaning supervisor at the State Department for Correctional Services, from dealing with or transferring his multi-million shilling assets in Nairobi, Kisii and Kericho counties.

Justice Maina also ordered Mutai and his three companies to surrender seven vehicles valued at more than Sh32 million to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) in seven days.

“The freezing orders shall subsist for a period of six months to allow EACC complete investigations into the allegations of fraud and embezzlement of public funds, and to file a formal application for recovery of the public resources,” ruled Justice Maina.

Besides the vehicles, other frozen assets are a Sh17.5 million house in Nairobi, two parcels of land in Nyaribari Chache in Kisii County valued at Sh25 million and another piece of land in Kericho valued at Sh17 million.

The anti-corruption agency claims that the cleaning supervisor with a monthly salary of Sh20,800 registered seven companies between 2012 and 2016 and used them to siphon public funds in the guise of supplying foodstuff.

The commission’s lawyer Diana Kenduiwa told the court that Mutai colluded with some senior Prisons officers to have his companies paid the Sh257 million without supplying anything.

“His companies were the conduits for embezzling the Sh257 million through fictitious contracts for supply of food and ration to the State Department of Correctional Services when the goods were never supplied,” he said.

EACC says the three companies – Unique Supplies, Homex Logistics Enterprises and Hygienic Ventures – bought the pieces of land and the seven vehicles.

The agency claims that documents used to process the payments were forged.

“Mutai purported to have supplied food and ration to seven prison facilities in Nairobi, but our investigations established no such goods were ever supplied. We discovered that his companies were registered between 2016 and 2017 for the sole purpose of receiving the funds,” says a forensic investigator, Dorothy Mnjala, in her affidavit.

She states the suspect hurriedly withdrew the money and used his proxies to buy properties across the country which were registered in his relatives' names.

EACC claims that Mutai’s monthly income does not tally with his multi-million shilling empire.

The case comes up on October 25.