Why court acquitted former Kenya Pipeline boss Tanui, chief manager in Sh35 million graft case
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Former Kenya Pipeline Company boss Charles Tanui (centre) in a Nairobi court where he faced abuse of office charges alongside Elias Maina Karumi ( left) and Josephat Kipkoech. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
Former Kenya Pipeline (KPC) managing director Charles Tanui and former chief manager (technical) Elias Maina Karumi did not play any role in the procurement of autotransformers worth Sh35 million over a decade ago, the court has ruled.
While acquitting the two former officials early this week, Milimani anti-corruption court magistrate Dr Victor Wakumile said that Mr Tanui and Mr Karumi were not privy to the deliberations of the tender opening committee, the inspection and acceptance committee and, hence were not in a position to influence the decision of the two committees in any way.
According to the magistrate, the two former officials acted on documents presented before them on the basis of mutual trust and the spirit of collegiality they signed them, hence blameless.
“They had no reason to doubt the subject payments because KPC uses SAP (systems applications and products) systems where approvals must be granted at each approval stage, failure to which an application could be automatically rejected by the system,” the magistrate said.
According to the trial magistrate, there was “no scintilla of evidence suggesting that they abused their offices or benefitted in any way from the payments”, but were simply executing their respective mandates.
“I find it rather weird that amid all exculpatory and exonerative evidence tendered by witnesses, the present charges were still preferred against the two accused,” said the court.
The magistrate, however, placed former KPC chief engineer Mr Josephat Kipkoech Sirma on his defence.
The former KPC officials were accused of failing to comply with the law relating to procurement by authorising payment of Euros 261,070 (about Sh35 million) to Redline Limited for three autotransformers on February 18, 2014.
The charges stated that on February 18, 2014, at KPC’s offices in the Industrial Area, Mr Tanui conferred a benefit to Redline Ltd by authorising payment of Euro 8,695 (Sh1.17million) for a tender of installation and commissioning of line 2 station Autotransformer.
They were also charged with abuse of office.
Mr Sirma was accused of signing a Material Arrival Advice Note, without lawful authority purporting it to be genuine certifying that works in respect of the tender issued to Redline Limited had been completed successfully.
He was further accused of preparing an inspection report, which facilitated the irregular payments to the company.
Mr Tanui had initially and his co-accused had initially been charged with the same offences in 2015 but they were withdrawn after it emerged that the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) which had investigated the matter, was not properly constituted and hence could not have recommended the charges.
KPC at the time needed three auto-transformers and the state corporation hired France’s Agecelec to bring the equipment to Kenya, install and commission them.
Investigators would later find that Redline Ltd received Sh35 million for the transformers, before being paid another Sh1.17 million in installation and commissioning fees.
In his defence, Mr Tanui said he was not a member of any committees that approved the award of the tender and since he had no technical knowledge of transformers, he relied on documents presented to him to authorise payment.
Last year, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Renson Ingonga sought to withdraw the case under section 87(a) of the criminal procedure code but it was rejected by Dr Wakumile.
The plans to drop the case were opposed by the EACC, which investigated the matter.
In seeking to drop the charges, the DPP said the case has a lot of missing technical details and the trial lacks a clear trail of criminal conduct.
While rejecting the application, the magistrate said the matter has been in court for almost four years and it should run its full course so that it can be resolved conclusively.
skiplagat@ke.nationmedia.com