Nairobi's former chief finance officer and three others have been acquitted of Sh17.9 million fraud for lack of enough evidence.
Chief magistrate Kennedy Bidali, of the Magistrate Anti-Corruption, said on Thursday that the prosecution failed to prove the case against Jimmy KIamba and the other suspects.
Kiamba, county secretary Lilian Wanjiru Ndegwa, Regina Rotich and Stephen Osiro faced seven counts of abuse of office and making and uttering false documents.
The magistrate said the prosecution failed to charge the right people and turned them into witnesses.
"After analysing evidence adduced in court by prosecution witnesses,, I find there is no evidence to warrant conviction of the accused persons. I therefore acquit them under section 215 of the Criminal Procedure."
Bidali earlier acquitted all the accused, including Nancy Waithera, of another charge of conspiracy to commit an economic crime - fraudulent acquisition of public funds amounting to Sh17,902,728.
The amount is said to have been withdrawn from the imprest account of the Nairobi county government held at the City Hall branch of Co-operative Bank of Kenya.
While clearing them, the magistrate said the prosecution had not shown that the five accused persons had a common mind to defraud Nairobi.
"From evidence adduced by prosecution, they have failed to prove the accusations in the conspiracy to commit a felony."
''Millions siphoned in one year'
Before that, Bidali had determined that Kiamba who was the chief finance officer, Ndegwa, Rotich and Osiro had a case to answer.
The trial magistrate put the four on defence after investigating officer Tabu Luanga, of EACC's forensic and asset department, completed his testimony.
Luanga narrated how the suspects allegedly siphoned more than Sh20 million from their employer within a year.
He told the court that their investigations revealed more than this amount was fraudulently obtained by the accused persons from the Nairobi's accounts at the bank between January 1,to December 31, 2014.
He produced cheques and counterfeit cheques, payments vouchers and imprest warrants as exhibits, which he said were not submitted to the dispatcher department for authorisation as required.
The investigator further revealed that cheques were approved by Kiamba and Ndegwa in manner that was "irregular and
fraudulent."
He said a documents examiner found Kiamba's and Ndegwa's signatures
in several fraudulent cheques.
Probe resulted from FRC report
Luanga further informed the court that officers from his office recovered several payments vouchers from Kiamba's home and his offices sand that the figures added up to more than Sh 2.8 million.
The court heard that during the investigations, the investigator also recovered documents and established a parallel payment system was used.
The documents were presented as being for procurement of stationery, accessories and toners for the department of finance and economics.
He tabled several cheques that showed how Kiamba and Ndegwa wrote and approved the cheques so as to defraud the county. They were not examined and they were not subjected to internal audits.
The money was paid to Kiamba's secretary contrary to procurement law, he said, addidng there were double payments.
Luanga, while being questioned by senior state counsel Edwin Okello, produced a list from the bank showing how more than Sh20 million was paid to two payees - Rotich and Ephantus Mwangi, an employee of the county.
"All these payments [were not made to the two] since they were not able to explain themselves clearly at the bank," said the witness.
"Your honour, there are over 15 cheques l received from Nairobi's bank's account which do not have their purchase voucher.
"Some cheques authorised by Kiamba and Ndegwa were written from the air here for the authorisation of payments."
Luanga further testified that the investigation against Kiamba was prompted by a report from the Financial Reporting Centre.
A team of investigators was constituted to look into the matter.
From the bank, investigators got imprest account reports of transactions that took place and cheques that were irregularly paid, both in soft and hard copies. They also found documents implicating the accused persons.
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