Shock as Kidero’s Corruption Case is Pushed to May 2019

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A corruption case against former Nairobi County Governor Evans Kidero and his co-accused will be heard in May next year.

The date was set after the prosecution told trial magistrate Douglas Ogoti that all the witness statements have been supplied to the defence.

The case will be heard on May 2, 2019. According to the prosecution, 27 witnesses will be called to testify in the case. Former Nairobi Governor has denied three corruption-related charges leading to the loss of Ksh.213million.

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Kidero has pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring to commit an offence of fraud and two counts of dealing with suspect property leading to loss of public funds.

He is accused alongside nine others for services not rendered on diverse dates between January 16, 2014 and January 2016.

In July, the former city boss termed the new financial misappropriation allegations levelled against him and his administration as cheeky and a continuation of political malice meant to malign his name.

Investigations against the governor and nine county officials who served during his tenure over suspected embezzlement of Sh7.8 billion. “The claims made against me are cheeky,” he said on Monday.

The Financial Reporting Centre wrote to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to investigate Dr Kidero, the nine former officials, directors of four pharmaceutical companies and bank officials.

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They are accused of withdrawing the money from a number of county collection accounts between April 2014 and August 2017 through structured cash withdrawals.

But Dr Kidero denied the allegations, saying if there were payments made as has been classified as Real Time Gross Settlement by the Financial Reporting Centre, then there must have been a basis for the transfers, and they must have been done after officially being approved.

“I was not involved in any transaction, neither as an initiator nor as approver, and if I ever did, then the due process must have been followed. Therefore, you do not just jump into conclusion that money was embezzled. If that ever happened, then it would have been so glaring,” he said.

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He also stated that no investigator, either from the DCI or the EACC, has been in touch with him or made contact with the people responsible for handling financial and procurement matters.

He added that even if the issue is raised with him, he would not know anything as he has ‘absolutely nothing to do with payments’, saying that under the Public Finance Management Act, the governor has nothing to do with opening of accounts or procurement, and that he/she does not incur any expenditure.

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