Lugari MP Ayub Savula and his two wives yesterday denied charges of conspiracy to steal Sh122,335,500 from the ICT ministry.
Savula and his wives Melody Ringera and Hellen Kemboi are charged with obtaining money from the ministry by falsely pretending they were in a position to offer advertising services in high-circulation magazines.
The trio are also accused of attempting to obtain Sh119 million from the department of ICT, forgery and conspiring to obtain funds by false pretenses. They allegedly conspired to steal the cash between July 1, 2015, and August 30 this year.
They were charged alongside former ICT PS Sammy Itemere, Government Advertising Agency (GAA)boss Dennis Chembitwey, administrative secretary Dickson Nyandinga and 21 others.
Read:
Itemere and Nyandinga are facing an additional charge of abuse of office. They are accused of approving a fraudulent payment of the Sh122 million to the firms for advertisement services not rendered.
The two and their 21 juniors were also charged with aiding the theft. They were accused of aiding the directors of seven firms to fraudulently acquire public property.
They allegedly aided Savula’s firms to fraudulently acquire public property. They are Sunday Publishers, Melsav Company Ltd, Johnnewton Communications, The Express Media Group, No Burns Protection Agencies Ltd, Cross Ventures Ltd and Shieldlock Ltd. Savula is the director of the seven firms charged with the same offences, including the publishers of Sunday Express, a weekly newspaper circulated in Nairobi only.
Read:
They all denied the charges before chief magistrate Francis Andayi. Savula, Itemere and Chembitwey were released on Sh2 million bond each with sureties of similar amounts or Sh1 million bail. The rest were released on varying bond terms. Savula was also required to deposit a Sh500,000 bond for his firms.
Prosecutor Mungai Warui sought orders to detain some suspects, who did not turn up in court for plea taking and had not reported to the DCI to record statements as required.They are Sammy Makau, Martin Njoroge, Edmund Munene and Joseph Kamau. The case will be mentioned on November 22.
