Former Nairobi governor Evans Kidero's son Ronald was on Friday charged with storage of substandard petroleum products.
He was charged with storing 14,000 litres of diesel and 28,000 litres of gasoline which did not meet the Kenya Bureau of Standards specifications.
Ronald denied the charges before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi and was released on a cash bail of Sh100, 000 or a surety bond of Sh300,000.
The case will be mentioned on September 24 and the hearing starts on September 4.
Ronald was charged jointly with others yet to be arrested.
Ronald was arrested on Thursday just moments after the court released his father on bail.
His father spent the second night at Integrity Centre because his lawyers were not able to process his Sh2 million bail on time.
Motorist David Nyamu lodged a complaint with police after fueling at
the Shell Petrol Station at Ridgeways along Kiambu road owned by
Kidero, on August 3. Samples taken by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations found that
the fuel was substandard.
Ronald's lawyer Steve Luseno said the fuel had been sold out and
requested the court to restrain the police from shutting down the
station.
Luseno said detectives investigating the matter are planning to close
it. He requested the court to issue restraint orders.
He said the regulation of fuel dealers is in the purview of the Energy
Regulation Commission. He said the
commission had not raised concerns over his client's station.
ERC has contracted a private company SGS to conduct the
standardisation checks.
"We have not seen the report being alluded to and the commission has
not conducted any investigations. We are yet to receive a
complainant from the ERC," Luseno said.
He said the matter should be returned to the ERC who have the
technical capacity to determine the matters raised through the
complaint and police should not usurp the powers of the commission
The station is supplied fuel by Vivo Energy Limited. Luseno said
the company has maintained the fuel was supplied to them by the Kenya
Pipeline and meets the Kebs standards.
State counsel Kajuju Kirimi had sought orders to have the directors of
the Vivo Energy appear at the DCI headquarters for grilling.
But Andayi dismissed the application. Andayi said the company is not
listed as a party in the case and there is therefore nothing to
warrant the orders sought.
Andayi said the police can only seek such orders through a
miscellaneous application with a sworn affidavit explaining why they
need the orders.
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