Governor Mohamud received Sh26.1m, witness tells court
A key witness told the Anti-Corruption Court in Nairobi that Wajir Governor Mohamed Abdi Mohamud received Sh26.1 million linked to the corruption case facing three senior county officials and a bank manager.
Investigating officer Steve Wanyama, who led a team of EACC investigators, told chief magistrate Teresia Murigi that during their investigations, they found out that Sh26.1 million was withdrawn from Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) Wajir branch by two of the accused, namely Daud Abdullahi (Economic Planning executive) and Jeff Mworia (acting County Public Service head), who later delivered the money to the governor.
He said the money was divided into two, one which Daud delivered to the Governor at his residence in South B, Nairobi on October 10, 2018 while the other half was delivered by Mworia on October 13, 2018 to the governor.
Daud, Ahmed Sahal (County Secretary), Mworia and Sayid Ibrahim (Kenya Commercial Bank branch manager) have denied charges of embezzling public funds.
The witness said that from the information they received, the money was withdrawn from KCB by the two officials on instruction of the governor who had a problem with his election petition case.
Unsigned minutes
He told the court that the two took overdraft of Sh25 million since the county account had only Sh1.2 million.
The court heard that the two accused person the drew different cheques in Sh 5 million each cheque upon which they put together for purpose of delivering to the governor. The money was withdrawn from KCB Wajir branch on October 9,2018.
Wanyama said during the investigation they obtained some minutes signed by county secretary and other minutes unsigned.
He recalled that on November 7, 2018 he was at his EACC’s office when his supervisor summoned him in his office where he was instructed to immediately take over of investigation at Wajir county government over the alleged reported corruption.
The witness said immediately assembled his team of investigators and travelled to Wajir the same day where they conducted comprehensive investigation into the graft matter.
He said they first obtained search warrant order to search county offices and accounts belonging to the county at KCB Wajir branch.
“Your honour at KCB we retrieved several documents among them bank opening account and cheques from bank manager’s office,” said the officer.
He further said they retrieved other documents from county offices including office of county secretary.
Among the documents retrieved includes laptops phones and several communication letters.
At same time the governor risk being arrested for failing testify in the graft case against the four accused persons.
The magistrate issued fresh summons against the governor after he failed to turn up in court to give evidence.
Prosecution initially wanted the court to issue arrest warrant against the governor but she declined.
