Ex-KPA staff who were charged with acquisition of Sh 215 million will next month know their fate on whether they will be found guilty or innocent by the court.
The former KPA employees are charged alongside other associates with conspiring to commit an offence by acquisition of Sh 215 million.
The accused persons include former KPA’s Finance General Manager Patrick Nyoike Wambugu, his wife Jacinta Wambugu Wanjiiku, Former KPA’s Isaac Obunga, Alfred Hinga Nyoike, Peter Ndichu Kinyanjui and Nyali Capital Limited.
Mombasa Chief Magistrate Martha Mutuku who is the trial magistrate said she will give the verdict on October 24.
The prosecution closed its case after calling several witnesses to testify against the 6 accused persons and they urged the court to find them guilty of the offence.
However, in their defence, the accused denied the offense and argued that the prosecution failed to prove any of the charges leveled against them.
They said that there was no link between the purported crime of unlawful acquisition of public property in the sum of Sh215,098,340.80 from KPA and the business methodology Nyali Capital Limited.
It was their argument that the checks and balances processes described in detail by prosecution witnesses and the defence witnesses make it impossible for a third-party financier to acquire any public property from KPA.
“The investigating officer was completely unable to explain this link logically in light of the evidence according to Triza Farah,” they submitted.
Nyoike on his part told court that the prosecution failed to show which proceedings he participated in or if he voted or whether any vote was even taken during the creation of the Nyali Capital Limited as a Vendor in KPA’s system.
According to him, Nyali Capital Limited was financing the suppliers once they had been issued with LPOs.
“It is clear that Nyali Capital Limited was not the only institution financing KPA LPOs, and therefore, borrowing from Director of Public Prosecutions v Thuita Mwangi (supra)the charge of conspiracy cannot stand because it was not proved at all that there was an unlawful or criminal act in the business of supplier financing. It was not proved at all that supplier financing became an unlawful act at any point of the transactions,” he argued.
