How Samburu governor spent Sh2b county cash

Details of what Samburu Governor Moses Lenolkulal could have bought with Sh2 billion he is suspected to have looted from his county emerged on Thursday.

The details were revealed in court documents presented by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission when it sought to freeze his assets and accounts.

But as the EACC went on with its investigations, the besieged governor dashed to court seeking orders to stop anti-graft agency from arresting him. He argued that by arresting him, the ethics watchdog was only harassing and humiliating him.

In a High Court application, Lenolkulal though his lawyer Lawrence Karanja asked the court to grant him anticipatory bail pending his imminent arrest by the EACC.

“Pending hearing and determination of this application, this court be pleased to admit me to anticipatory bail pending any arrest, investigation or charge,” the application reads.

He has sued the EACC, the Inspector General of Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions claiming that they want to arrest him.

Lenolkulal says he is apprehensive that the EACC in conjunction with the Police IG and the DPP are planning to arrest and detain him on frivolous and trumped-up charges aimed at harassing, humiliating and discrediting him in utter violation of his rights.

“The information about my impending arrest has been circulating in social media and in Samburu and it's being said that I will be arrested,” he claims.

The assets range from multi-million-shilling buildings in high-end areas of Nairobi including Karen, prime plots, a hotel and a petrol station.

Already the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has successfully obtained court orders to freeze the governor’s billion-dollar properties for the next six months pending the outcome of his case in court.

On March 21, the EACC applied to the High Court, stopping Lenolkulal from accessing his three bank accounts at the Kenya Commercial Bank.

The orders bar the governor from transferring, withdrawing or making any transactions on accounts numbers 1103831208, 1108168841, 1104319899 and 1234708647 held at KCB with a total of Sh14.6 million.

According to the EACC documents obtained by the Star, about Sh1.6 billion county cash is feared to have been lost in inflated costs and fictitious procurement contracts, between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2018.

The agency believes that part of this money could have been syphoned from public coffers and directed into individual pockets through an irregular award of contracts by Lonolkulal’s government.

As part of the agency’s efforts to recover public funds, the EACC has tracked, documented and preserved the properties for possible recovery and return to government coffers should the governor be indicted for corruption.

Before he was elected Samburu governor in 2013, Lenolkulal was in the NGO world working in Northeastern.

The EACC says the governor’s investments records show that he didn’t own any land or house in Nairobi at the time, but his investments sprang up immediately he was elected.

EACC says that while the governor's official residence in Maralal is poorly maintained and valued at less than Sh5 million, his private residence is posh and valued at more than Sh70 million.

According to EACC records, the governor acquired his first home near Carnivore Restaraunt in his first year as governor before suddenly indulging in an investments spree with a massive interest in the real estate.

The anti-graft agency says the county chief’s exponential growth involved the development of multiple high-end properties across the country, with five of them in Nairobi.

The properties include a palatial mansion in Karen Fair Acres area an acre of land worth Sh300 million.

The EACC says the property was apparently acquired between 2016-2017, towards the end of the governor’s first term in office.

Lenolkulal also owns four parcels in the posh Karen suburb valued at more than Sh178 million.

“Sometimes back in 2015, he paid Sh75 million in cash in a day to one of the owners of these properties,” a source familiar with the ongoing probe said.

Red Rock Resort on five acres in dusty Maralal town along Maralal-Kisima road has 20 cottages valued at Sh70 million and EACC says it belongs to the governor.

The agency, which has obtained a freeze on the resort, says the property could have been acquired through the proceeds of crime.

The governor has Sh20 million commercial residential apartments in Maralal town built in 2017, a Sh1 million commercial building in the same town and another Sh1 million farmhouse at Poror, near the county headquarters.

The anti-graft body also avers that the county chief owns a Sh100 million residential home in Maralal town’s Milimani area acquired in 2017 by the governor.

Revealing the governor’s investment interests, the EACC says that in his early days in office, Lenolkulal built Oryx flats in Maralal town.

The building valued at Sh90 million also hosts the Kenya Revenue Authority regional offices and Oryx petrol station, which the EACC says is owned by the governor.

The anti-corruption agency says the Oryx petrol and service station between 2013 and 2018 was awarded a lucrative contract for supplying diesel and petroleum products to the county government.

EACC says this is a clear case of conflict of interest and against the law.

The graft detectives say the cash trail shows that after Oryx was paid money by the county government for the contracts, the money was quickly withdrawn or transferred into Lenolkulal’s personal accounts.

“Over Sh80 million has been received by the governor from the county for the supply of diesel and petrol in direct conflict of interest,” an EACC source said.

The source added, “More properties and accounts are being sought or identified for restriction.”

The governor has denied any wrongdoing and said publicly he was ready to face the law if he is found culpable.

According to the governor, it is apparent that there are people working for the EACC who leak information to social media, either by design or by default.

“I am more than willing and ready to cooperate with the state and their officers but given the mental anguish and torture I have continued to experience, I seek bail in order to secure my right to freedom of movement and association,” the governor told the court.

He says that he is a man of good reputation who has wrongly been subjected to public ridicule and that any further action by the state will greatly undermine his right to human dignity as guaranteed in law.

“If admitted to bail, I undertake to continue cooperating with the state and in the event they take the decision to charge me, I will willingly avail myself in court,” he says.

On February 20 this year, EACC officers invaded Lenolkulal'sresidences in Nairobi and Maralal and his offices in Maralal in search of documents.

After the search, the officers took the governor in at Integrity Centre but waited until February 25 when he recorded a statement.

On Monday, the Samburu Council of Elders converged at the governor’s office in Maralal and held a “cleansing ceremony” of the governor and his administration to exorcise “bad spirits”.

The elders said the cleansing was meant to ward off rampant bad luck, which has befallen the governor and top county officials.

However, EACC is tightening the noose on individuals suspected to have looted public funds with the aim of recovering assets.

The anti-graft agency has intensified the war on corruption with a focus on repossessing and reclaiming stolen money and grabbed state assets worth about Sh1 billion property recovered this month

Last week, the EACC recovered parcels of land and properties worth Sh 650 million in Nakuru believed to have been acquired fraudulently; the same were forfeited and surrendered to state in a ceremony at Sarova Woodland Hotel.

The agency has also recovered 1.8 acres of Kisumu law courts' grabbed land valued at Sh50 million. The property, which had hived off from Judiciary land with the help of a past magistrate, has been the subject of a court battle between the agency and the developer since 2008.