The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Noordin Haji has dropped a Ksh33 Million corruption case against former Transport Cabinet Secretary (CS) Engineer Michael Kamau which has been pending in court for the last eight years.
While dropping the graft case, the DPP informed Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Victor Wakhumile that there is no sufficient evidence to sustain the charges against the former CS and his co-accused persons Mwangi Maingi and Nicholas Ng’ang’a.
The new development comes after Haji reviewed the evidence afresh and invoked his discretion in prosecutorial mandate and duties in determining the life of a pending case before determination. 30 witnesses had testified in the case before the DPP recalled the file for review.
He sought to have the charges withdrawn under Section 87 (a) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC).
Under this section, a suspect may be re-arrested and prosecuted again once cogent evidence has been acquired by the investigating agencies.
Consequently, the magistrate allowed the DPP's request to discharge Kamau and two others over the construction of the Kamukuywa-Kapsokwony-Sirisia road which led the government to lose Sh Ksh33,303,600.
The discharge comes after President William Ruto recently appointed Kamau to be the chairperson of the NHIF Board for a term of three years.
The three who were senior officials at the Ministry of Roads between 2007 and 2008 had been accused of arbitrarily authorising the road redesign when it had already been done by Engconsult Limited at the cost of Ksh33,303,600 thereby subjecting the public to pay twice.
Maingi is alleged to have abused his office between July 2007 and March 2008 when he was the chief engineer for roads while Ng’ang’a was the resident engineer.
The prosecution alleges that their actions resulted in the loss of public funds when they sidelined the company which had already been paid in undertaking the road’s redesign.
Maingi also faced charges of giving misleading documents, where it was alleged that he lied to the ministerial tender committee in the Ministry of Roads that the implementation of an agreement with Kundan Singh Construction Limited had no cost implications for the government.
Former CS Kamau faced two charges of willful failure to comply with applicable procedures and guidelines relating to the management of public funds and abuse of office.
It is alleged that as a person responsible for the management of public revenue, he ignored the design of Kamukuywa-Kaptama-Kapsokwony-Sirisia Road done by Engiconsult Limited and irregularly allowed the resident engineer to redesign the same road.
Kamau is also accused of abusing his authority by causing the road to be redesigned without involving Engiconsult Consulting Engineers Limited.
