Haji, Kinoti w*rs escalate as ODPP rejects another case
Zadock Angira
@PeopleDailyKe
There was a standoff at the Milimani Law Courts yesterday when the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) refused to approve the prosecution of the National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority acting chief executive officer Eng Geoffrey Sang by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
Sang, and three of his colleagues, were arrested on Thursday last week by a team of detectives from the Serious Crimes Unit at the DCI headquarters over a suspected dam construction scam.
The ODPP refused to approve the charge sheets and directed that the original police file to taken to DPP Noordin Haji’s office.
Sang was not present in court but his lawyer presented a letter from a doctor indicating that he had been hospitalised.
Second time
The three were charged with a number of counts including abuse of office, conspiracy to defeat execution of a written law, neglect of official duty and breach of trust by persons employed in the public service.
This is the second time the ODPP has refused to approve the charging of suspects in what now appears to be bad blood between the office of the DCI headed by George Kinoti and ODPP.
Last month, the DCI arrested former Kenya Ports Authority MD Daniel Manduku and Kenya Revenue Authority Commissioner Kevin Safari and attempted to prosecute them before sending files to the ODPP.
But Haji, through his assistant Joseph Riungu, refused to charge the accused.
In one of the charges preferred by the DCI, Sang and the HR boss are accused that on February 28, they facilitated the appointment of Lydia Korir, a procurement assistant, to be the Head of Procurement without following the HR management policies of the authority.
Also presented in court yesterday was the authority’s senior security officer Benard Ochieng Aseno who as also charged with abuse of office on allegations that he allowed Nixon Kiprotich Bett, Noah Nondin Arap Too and Mutai Peter Kibett to access to the CEO’s office and obtained documents and electronic data of the authority.
On Thursday last week, detectives raided the authority’s offices along Dunga Road and collected a number of documents related to the tender.
The project situated in Turkana County, entails construction of an 18 metre high dam made of clay core and shell materials.
