BY PRUDENCE WANZA – Treasury CS Henry Rotich and PS Kamau Thugge have been released on Sh.15m cash bail.
Chief Magistrate Douglas Ogoti has ordered them to surrender their passports in eight hours.
They are accused of consipracy to defraud government, failing to comply with procurement law and irregular procurement of insurance policy through single sourcing for the Arror and Kimwarer multipurpose dams project.
Rotich and the co-accused are alleged to have conspired with others not before court to defraud the govt of Kenya USD 244,422,163.93 and USD 277,407,605.50 in respect of the development of Kimwarer dam and Arror multipurpose dams respectively, by entering in a commercial loan facility agreement disguising it as a government to government loan guaranteed by the Italian government. This they did, knowing all along that the tender document contained in the request for proposals for the dams, was a concessional agreement where the intended concessionaire was to be the borrower and financier and not the government of Kenya.
The prosecution wled by Taib Ali Taib proposed the accused persons to surrender their passports and travel documents.
Taib added that the bail terms should be commensurate with the billions lost.
The defence led by Katwa Kigen and Kioko Kilukumi agreed with all the proposals, except the suggestion that bail terms be billions of shillings.
Other lawyers in the case include Mahat Somen and Phillip Nyachoti.
Kilukumi asked the court to release the accused on reasonable bond terms.
He said unless there are compelling reasons, the accused should be immediately released on bail.
Kilukumi also said Rotich has fully cooperated with the police and went to DCI headquarters on seven different occasions to help investigators with the case.
