Businesswoman faces arrest over Sh2.5b tax evasion case
A warrant of arrest has been issued against two Directors of Purma Holdings Limited for failing to appear in court to plead to charges of tax evasion amounting to over Sh2.5 billion.
Mary Wambui Mungai and her daughter Purity Njoki Mungai were to appear in court yesterday but failed to do so, prompting the Anti-Corruption Court Chief Magistrate Felix Kombo to issue a warrant against them. The warrant was directed to Capitol Hill Police Station.
“The case will be mentioned on December 14 or the earliest the suspects will be arrested,” said the magistrate.
Mungai, a billionaire who was is a financier of the Jubilee Party, through the Friends of Jubilee Foundation lobby where she is a member, is being accused of unpaid taxes of Sh2.5 billion from government contracts in the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa), the military among others.
Tax returns
The businesswoman and her daughter are expected to plead to charges of omitting income tax returns from their company, Purma Holdings Limited, of Sh2,231,789,125 in 2014.
The two and their company are also expected to be charged with omitting income tax returns of Sh352,146,569 an amount that should have been included in the income tax returns for 2015.
Two daughters
They will also face three other counts of omitting the income tax returns for the year 2016, 2017, 2018, all which amount to over Sh1 billion.
The two and the company are also expected to be charged with three counts of failure to submit a tax return by due date.
They allegedly, knowingly and unlawfully, failed to submit to the commissioner income tax amounting to Sh1.6 billion for 2015 to 2020.
Two daughters of the tycoon had moved to court in July to stop their arrest claiming that they resigned from the company on August 28, 2019, and transferred their shares to their mother.
Everlyn Nyambura and Purity Njoki had been summoned by the Kenya Revenue Authority but fearing their arrest, they sought anticipatory bail.
They claimed they were incorporated as directors of Purma Holdings when they were minors and held 150 ordinary shares each which they relinquished when they ceased to be directors.
