BY PRUDENCE WANZA – Keroche Breweries Limited owners have moved to court seeking to be admitted on bail pending arrest over allegations of 14 billion Tax evasion.
Tabitha Karanja , Joseph Karanja and Keroche Breweries Limited under certificate of urgency are seeking to be released on bail pending their appearance in court over any criminal proceedings against them.
“This court be pleased to release the applicants on their execution of bond for their appearance upon institution of any criminal proceedings against the applicants in respect of the said allegations”, they urged in the court documents.
They claim that they have been subjected to untold mental and psychological anguish and torture hounded by a press statement released by the Director of Public Prosecution on August 21 directing that they be charged for alleged for alleged tax fraud of Kshs. 14,451,826,375.
In the court docents, Tabitha and the husband claim that the decision by DPP is irrational, mala fides and unfair on the account of being abrupt and made without seeking statement from them to give their side of story , partially aimed at natural persons Tabitha Karanja and Joseph Karanja and on matter relating to a corporate body that has distinct personality Keroche Breweries.
They term DPP move discriminatory and aimed at embarrassing them because the company has many directors. Tabitha and Karanja claim that tax dispute between Keroche Breweries and Kenya Revenue Authority is pending before Tax Tribunal.
The cases namely Keroche Breweries limited vs Commissioner for Domestic Taxes Kenya Revenue Authority tax appeals No. 214, 38, 97, 137, 138, and 139 of 2017 that was mentioned on May 8,2019 where parties were urged to put in their submissions and notice for the date for highlighting submissions .
BY PRUDENCE WANZA – A man has been charged with unauthorized access to family bank Limited network systems.
Geoffrey Oduor Ojow alias Jojo Odukuzi alias Jeff Mzee is accused of willfully and unlawfully remotely gaining access to family bank limited network systems thereby infringing the information security measures of the said bank.
Oduor faces a second count of access with intend to commit offences.He is accused of willfully and unlawfully remotely gaining access to family bank network systems to commit the offence of stealing from the said bank.
He is alleged to have committed the offences on diverse dates between 1st November,2018 and 20th January, 2019 at unknown place within the republic of Kenya.
He denied the charges before Senior Resident magistrate Zainab Abdul at the Milimani law courts. He was released on a cash bail of Sh.300,000 and bond of Sh. 500,000.
The case will be mentioned on 5th September, 2019 and heard on 26th,September,2019.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiang’i has reaffirmed the order to close all food and drink joints at 5 pm on August 24th, despite opposition from a section of Kenyans and legislators.
During a press briefing by the cabinet committee on Census, the stern interior minister stood firm on his directive concerning the evening of August 24th.
“Bars open at 2 pm, you can have your beer till 5 pm when they close. If by this time you will not have had enough, then I think there is something wrong with you,” he said.
This comes after a section of leaders, including one Senator Milicent Omanga, who faulted the directive, terming it as unwarranted and unjustified, adding that the move will mean harm to businesses that thrive during the weekend.
“…They’ll have no cash to pay their employees, suppliers and landlords,” she said.
This interesting stalemate will play out during the roll out of Kenya’s 2019 census on Saturday, a cat and mouse game between the government and lovers of the bottle.
Kenyan citizen George Ouko could be facing a possible death sentence after being caught in possession of 1.2 Kilograms of cocaine, stuffed in 68 pellets inside his stomach.
The 43-year-old was arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport in Thailand where the suspicious contents of his stomach were detected through an X-Ray machine.
George Ouko who was travelling from Ethiopia, was arrested along side his handler , Osita Joseph Ukpa, a Nigerian national who authorities say, was the one who hired the Kenyan man to transport the drugs.
Drug trafficking is a capital offence in Thailand and many who have been caught, have ended up being executed as the law allows for a death sentense to anyone caught trsfficking.
Despite this heavy penalty for culprits, Thailand remains one of the most ‘favourable’ transit points for illegal Drug Trade. Local dailies attribute this to ‘porous borders and laxity in securing entry points’.
According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the powerful, highly addictive Cocaine affects the central nervous system and can cause brain damage, or death.
After long preparations, The government has finally declared that Census 2019 is ready to be conducted. Come August 24th, Enumerators will be going round, and these are the questions they will ask you during this year’s population exercise.
Here are the Questions Census 2019 officials will want you to answer:-
What are the names of each person who spent the night of 24th/25th August, 2019 in this household?
What is each person’s relationship to the head of this household?
What is their sex ?
What is their age (s)?
What is their date of birth?
Please insert line number of their biological mother
Is the person a usual member of this household?
What is their ethnicity or nationality ?
What is their religion ?
What is their marital status?
Where were they born?
Where were they living in August 2018?
When did they move to the current county?
Why did they move to the current place of residence?
For women older than 12 years, questions will be as follows:
How many children have you ever borne alive?
How many children have you borne alive who usually live in this household ?
How many children have you borne alive who usually live elsewhere ?
How many children have you borne alive who have died ?
When was your last child born?
Where did this last birth occur?
What was the sex of this child/ children?
Was this last birth notified?
Is this last child/ children still alive ?
If the last child is not alive, when did the child die?
BY PRUDENCE WANZA – Chief magistrate Francis Andayi has faulted the police for arresting suspects within the court premises.
” I had previously given orders that the police should arrest Humphrey Kariuki and that he should have availed himself to the DCI,” the presiding magistrate said.
Andayi stated that he will not allow the police to arrest anyone within the premises of Milimani law courts. This comes after the police arrested Humphrey Kariuki at the basement cells of the Milimani law courts.
According to the law police should not arrest anyone at the following premises; COURT PREMISES,CHURCHES and MOSQUES and AIRPORTS. “Special permission must be sought if any police officer wishes to arrest a person at these premises with reasons as to why they must do the arrest,” said Omari.
Omari says that ,the courts are supposed to protect fundamental freedoms stating that the arrest of Humphrey Kariuki was upfront and abuse of the administrative power of the police.Therefore the police should only arrest a person within the areas prescribed as arrest zones.
BY HENRY MARETE – Director of Public Prosecution Noordin Haji has ordered the immediate arrest and arraignment of Keroche Breweries directors Tabitha Mukami Muigai and her husband Joseph Karanja Muigai to face prosecution over a suspected tax evasion bill amounting to a staggering Ksh. 14.5B.
In a statement sent to newsrooms, Wednesday afternoon, Haji said his office was satisfied there was enough evidence to charge the two, alongside their company as a legal entity, with tax evasion following investigations conducted by the Kenya Revenue Authority between January 2015 and June 2019.
“The Audit by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) established that Keroche Breweries Limited had evaded the payment of tax totaling Fourteen billion, four hundred and fifty one million, eight hundred and thirty six thousand, three hundred and seventy five Kenya Shillings (14,451,836,375),” the statement read.
The DPP recommends that the company and its directors be charged with 10 counts of tax fraud contrary to section 97(a) and (c) of the Tax Procedures Act of 2015.
The KRA file was submitted on August 18 by the Commissioner-General James Mburu upon the completion of an investigation on the Naivasha-based brewery that concluded that the couple evaded paying more than 14 billion shillings in Value Added Tax (VAT) and Excise Duty.
Keroche Breweries has had a long-running dispute with the taxman. However its directors have in the past complained that their business was being harassed on the instigation of a competitor working in cahoots with KRA and Government officials.
The arrest order comes hot on the heels of this week’s arraignment of top officials of Africa Spirits and Wines Limited and Wow Beverages Limited on accusations of evading payment of Ksh.41 billion in taxes. Those already charged include tycoon Humphrey Kariuki, who admits having shares in the companies but denies playing any role in their day-to-day management.
Faced with declining tax revenues and amid a growing national Government budget deficit, the Kenya Revenue Authority has recently intensified its crackdown on suspected tax evaders.
As the protests in Hong Kong enter their eleventh straight week, it’s not uncommon to see teenagers dressed in full battle gear. When I was in Hong Kong in mid August, I encountered a group of young people, including some who looked as young as 14, on their way to a late-night protest wearing face masks and protective gear. I saw them behave in a way that suggested they didn’t care about the consequences of protesting.
Many of the young people protesting in Hong Kong talk online about feeling they have little to lose. For many, this seems like their generation’s chance to fight the overwhelming influence of China on Hong Kong’s way of life.
Demonstrators continue to impress the world with their enormous mobilisation. Organisers estimated 1.7m people attended a peaceful mass rally on August 18, which made it the second largest in the Special Administrative Region’s history. Turnout wasn’t affected by torrential rain, or the severe limitations authorities placed on protest sites and routes.
The latest peaceful protests keep up pressure on the Hong Kong and Beijing governments, which are still hoping the movement will fizzle out, as the previous protests of the Umbrella Movement did back in 2014.
It’s possible the authorities were waiting for violent behaviour from some of the protesters’ more radical factions to give them a pretext to deploy drastic police measures, or even an intervention by forces from mainland China. Nothing like this happened.
Instead, calls for a calm and peaceful protest on LIHKG, one of the main online platforms used by the protesters to organise and communicate, suggest that the leaderless movement is capable of moderating between its different factions.
The previous week was one of the most dramatic of the protests so far. Activists defied restrictions and bans on demonstrations on the weekend of August 10 and 11, opting for rallies and events at several places across the territory.
On that Sunday, I was in Hong Kong and observed a protest march in Kowloon from Sham Shui Po to Cheung Sha Wan. It was very well attended by citizens from all ages and backgrounds, though young people wearing facemasks to disguise their identity were in the relative majority. The protest that afternoon was illegal, yet peaceful and well organised.
Signs held up during the Sham Shui Po rally.Malte Philip Kaeding, Author provided
I saw the participants providing water and rubbish bags, and demonstrators making way for vehicles travelling on the roads. Onlookers and bystanders cheered protesters on and young vendors from South Asian ethnic-minority backgrounds handed out free soft drink cartons of lemon or chrysanthemum tea. After the march arrived at its end point, the Cheung Sha Wan MTR underground station, a group of young masked activists hid behind umbrellas and quickly assembled roadblocks. Within minutes, the police reacted by firing tear gas.
Tensions rising
It had already become clear that Hong Kong’s police had prepared an escalation of their counter measures. On that same Sunday, the police resorted to using tear gas inside MTR stations. They deployed undercover officers dressed as protesters to make arrests, which undermined the high level of trust among protesters, at least temporarily. It also emerged that a woman was shot that day with an apparent beanbag round at a parallel protest in Tsim Sha Tsui, causing a rupture of her right eye.
This new level of police violence was condemned by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. Protesters reacted to the violence by escalating action further and staged mass sit-ins and blockages of the airport on the following two days which brought air travel to a standstill. The protesters achieved their goal of gaining significant international attention. I saw some speaking flawless English, handing out information pamphlets at major traffic hubs in the city, targeting overseas travellers and apologising for the inconvenience caused by the protests.
Yet there were clashes with the police and protesters did attack a mainland Chinese journalist who failed to show his press card, which tarnished the international image of the demonstration. This presented the movement with a major challenge as gaining international attention for the protests have been an important strategy from the very beginning. The idea is that international pressure will push the Hong Kong government to start engaging with the demonstrators and agree to their demands, which include the complete withdrawal of a controversial extradition bill and an independent inquiry into police behaviour.
The goal of the peaceful protests on August 18 was to regain international support. The Chinese authorities realised this and engaged in counter propaganda and mobilisation internationally, while at the same time trying to scare Hong Kongers with military drills a few kilometres beyond the border in Shenzhen.
The most radical of the young protesters are unlikely to be deterred by threat of intervention from Chinese paramilitary forces. Many feel they have little to lose. Aged roughly between 14 and 20, these young people have realised that Hong Kong’s political and economic system is deeply unfair, and all odds are stacked against them. They don’t want to defend Hong Kong’s status quo. Many were fearless about the consequences of their actions, driven by anger over police brutality and government incompetence.
A poster put up by protesters advertising the Sham Shui Po anti-extradition law rally.Malte Philip Kaeding, Author provided
In the online forums used by the movement, protesters discuss ideas of a scorched-earth policy, by which they mean provoking an economic crash. Forum administrators have names roughly translated as “I want to die/burn with you” and slogans such as “if we burn, you burn with us” are frequent. One post from early July, about the storming of the Legislative Assembly building, had the title “We die together”.
This radical faction had their political awakening in the aftermath of the 2014 Umbrella Movement when activists, known as “localists”, called for direct actions to bring about change. Their hope was the fight against rapid economic and social integration with China, for real universal suffrage and autonomy or even independence for Hong Kong. But much of the leadership of the localist movement was either imprisoned or in exile, many young protesters now feel that their future is at stake.
The high price young activists have already paid, of arrest injury or both, during the protests reinforces their fearlessness. It’s unlikely that they will be satisfied with anything other than real change. On August 20, Hong Kong’s chief executive promised to create a “platform for dialogue” between the protesters and authorities. But it’s not clear yet whether the Hong Kong and Beijing governments are willing to give way, or whether they are prepared to further alienate an entire generation.
The African Union (AU) came into existence after a restructuring of its predecessor – the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). It was created to build an integrated, prosperous and peaceful continent.
While the AU has a clear mandate to deepen the process of economic and political integration on the continent, its predecessor was run on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states. This lessened its ability to resolve member states’ internal disputes.
However, the OAU did originate some of the standards that are at the foundation of the AU’s conflict resolution approach. One such standard is contained in the Lome Declaration which criminalises unconstitutional changes of government.
The AU now has a wider legal mandate for internal conflict resolution than its predecessor. This mandate is set out in its Constitutive Act and in its Peace and Security Council Protocol. But, the implementation of this mandate is still a work in progress.
But the AU has in recent days been rightly praised for using its regional laws to broker an agreement between the Sudanese military and the country’s civilian movement. The agreement comes after months of conflict that followed the ouster of Sudan’s despotic ruler Omar al-Bashir.
After al-Bashir was deposed, the military attempted to assume leadership of the country. It attacked protesters who were demanding that authority be transferred to a civilian administration. The attacks led to deaths and injuries.
The agreement, which was brokered with the help of Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Prime minister, set out key conditions, including the following:
The establishment of a joint military and civilian sovereign council, which will govern the country for three years before elections are held.
Shared leadership of the council. A military leader will lead for 21 months followed by a civilian leader for 18 months.
A bill of rights and freedoms for all Sudanese citizens.
The AU’s involvement has proven the usefulness of its regional laws in resolving internal disputes in member States. So how did it reach this point, and what lessons have been learned from its work in Sudan?
AU intervention
The military takeover that followed al-Bashir’s removal from power amounted to an “unconstitutional change of government” which is prohibited by Article 4 of the AU’s Constitutive Act.
This breach of regional law empowered Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chairperson of the AU Commission, to denounce the military’s actions.
Following the official denouncement, the AU’s Peace and Security Council adopted a decision stating that the actions of the Sudanese military amounted to an unconstitutional change of government. The Council is central to the AU’s legal framework. It was set up to prevent, manage and resolve conflicts. Its April 2019 decision also reiterated the need for a civilian-led and consensual transition and demanded that the military hand over power within 15 days.
Failure to hand over power should have led to the automatic suspension of Sudan from the activities of the AU as provided by the Council’s protocol. However, an extension of three months was subsequently agreed to allow for further negotiations.
In my view, the decision to grant the extension was problematic because it undermined the “automatic” nature of the suspension and allowed the military to continue attacks on civilians without repercussions. Due to lack of progress and escalating violence, the Council eventually suspended Sudan in June.
During the three-month notice period, the AU continued to engage with the key parties in the conflict. This happened even as the military continued attacks on protesters. Finally in July, the AU/Ethiopia mediation team convinced both parties to resume talks. This led to the signing of a constitutional declaration.
In the end, the AU’s mediation was successful. But during the drawn out negotiations over a hundred people were killed and hundreds more injured. This begs the question: what could the AU have done differently?
Lessons learned
While it is laudable that the AU’s intervention in the Sudanese political crisis resulted in an agreement, there are lessons that should be learnt.
The most important lesson is regarding the implementation of the provision for suspension. The 15-day ultimatum that was originally given for the restoration of civilian rule is consistent with previous practice by the AU’s Peace and Security Council.
The threat of imminent suspension could have incentivised the military to act more speedily towards a resolution within a shorter time frame. It could have prevented or reduced the violence that ensued in the following months.
In addition, the AU and its Council need to develop a concrete strategy for dealing with continuing violence in the course of negotiations. The Constitutive Act gives these bodies the power to directly intervene in member states where there is serious threat to legitimate order and a need to restore peace and stability. The means and method of implementation of this power is left to the AU under the law, but could include the deployment of peacekeeping forces.
I would argue that the Sudan crisis warranted direct intervention.
This is not to downplay the crucial role that the AU and the Council played in helping to resolve the Sudan political crisis. Indeed, the role played by the regional body underscores the importance of its legal order and institutions in conflict resolution in Africa.
Its success in this respect will instil confidence among member states. It will also bolster the AU’s image as an effective and efficient organisation on the international stage.
BY PRUDENCE WANZA – Mithika Linturi paid Sh.100,000 for dowry in a marriage ceremony with Maryanne Kaitany which was conducted under the Nandi and Meru customary laws.
This was according to Maryanne Kaitany who testified in court before Chief Magistrate Peter Ngare in a divorce against the Meru Senetor. Kaitany who is being represented by lawyer Danstan Omari, told the court that they met when she was working at the Deputy President’s office as the chief of Staff. According to Kaitany the two started their courtship.
She told the court that when she was still working at DPs office and Linturi in Parliament as MP when her name was among those investigated with corruption and had to step aside.
At this time Linturi was living in her house in Kileleshwa and when Kaitany’s name was being investigated by EACC Linturi gave her shoulder to lean on in terms of moral support. Her name got cleared in mid 2016 when they were still in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Kaitany stated that Linturi encouraged her not to go back to work in the government and offered her to work in his company ,Atticon Limited as the CEO.
She worked in Atticon limited for three years and pumped in around sh.6.8m in the business. Kaitany exited the company in August, 2018. Kaitany told the court how their customary marriage was performed in presence of Kaitany’s family and elders from Meru who represented Linturi’s parents who did not attend the ceremony.
According to Kaitany Linturi paid dowry of Sh. 100,000 and gifts of food stuffs.During the ceremony he also gifted Kaitany’s mother a Nissan Xtrail. She also claimed to have paid about Sh.26m for the renovation of Linturi’s house in Meru so that it could accomodate all their children.”I did not mind because I knew it was for the family,”said Kaitany. She added that they also decided to buy a property in Runda,Nairobi so they could have a spacious house here in the city.
Kaitany said that she married Mithika Linturi because he proved he was divorced. “I performed motherly duties to my 3 children and his 3children who even referred to me as MUM,I also performed my duties as a wife,” said Kaitany.
“Linturi gave me divorce documents claiming that he was divorcing his wife but later I learnt that he was still married.” She told the court that when she filed a divorce petition in Meru Linturi allegedly told her that she could not divorce her as he was still married.
This prompted Kaitany to go the DCI forensic department for verification of the signatures in the divorce papers which proved it was indeed the signatures of Mithika Linturi. 38 witnesses are set to testify in the matter which is before Chief Magistrate Peter Gisore, in a bid to prove that indeed they were married under the law. The case will proceed on 2nd September.
