Seven people including Malindi MP Aisha Jumwa have been charged with conspiracy to defraud Sh19 million allocated to the Malindi constituency NG-CDF.
Jumwa who did not appear before court was charged alongside Wachu Omar, Kennedy Otieno, Bernard Kai, Sophia Charo, Margaret Kalume, Robert Katana and a company named Multserve Contractors Limited.
They were jointly accused of defrauding the constituency of funds which were allocated for construction of an educational office block in a tender awarded in 2018.
Otieno, Kai, Charo and Kalume were further accused of failing to comply with procurement laws by failing to deal with the financial and technical aspects of the procurement.
Omar was accused of failing to appoint a person in charge of procurement as the tender secretary to the tender evaluation committee as well as awarding the tender to Multserve before a professional opinion had been rendered.
Katana faced two extra charges of forging a CV and a craft certificate which allegedly belonged to Abdalla Salim purporting to be a genuine document.
He was further charged with forging a company profile as well as an audited financial statement for 2015 alleging that they belonged to Multserve and that they had been proposed by AML public accountants.
Katana and the company were also accused of concealing Sh3.4 million from the Malindi NG-CDF believed to be proceeds of crime.
The six people and the company denied the charges before Mombasa chief magistrate Edna Nyaloti.
Nyaloti released all the accused persons on Sh10 million bond with a surety or an alternative of Sh5 million cash bail.
The magistrate further ordered the Malindi MP who did not appear before her to surrender at Port police station before Monday.
Nyaloti said Jumwa should present herself to the police for processing before she is arraigned on Monday.
Her lawyers Danstan Omari, Cliff Ombeta and Jared Magolo said the DPP did not inform their client of the impending charges and therefore Jumwa could not present herself to the court.
However, the DPP through its counsel Alloys Kemo said Jumwa switched her phones off and could not be traced in her known residents.
Kemo said the MP was aware of the charges but chose to hide and instead sent her four lawyers.
The matter will be mentioned on Monday.
Edited by Henry Makori
