Nandi police have stumbled upon stolen consignments of cement and iron sheets from the county government stores in Kapsabet.
The DCI and regular police officers found 400 bags of cement and 637 iron sheets meant for the construction of ECD centres in the house of a county employee.
The officers were investigating the theft of 110 tyres from the county two weeks ago.
“They were on a route in raids in the homes of some of the suspects as they searched for the tyres when they made a huge discovery of the government building materials,” an investigator said.
Nandi county police commander Thomas Ngeiywa confirmed the arrest of five county employees behind the theft of the tyres and new-found building materials. Two other people were arrested.
Thousands of high-quality iron sheets and bags of cement meant for the construction of 120 ECD centres across Nandi are missing from the stores.
The centres were expected to have been ready by the end of the 2018-19 financial year.
Nandi county had procured materials that were expected to be distributed across the centres under the public partnerships with the county government.
“The committees were expected to provide labour and the county government expected to supply them with materials,” assembly Education committee chair Emmanuel Rono said.
Seven people, including procurement officers, project managers, stores clerks and security guards, have so far been arrested and are expected in court next week.
Tyres worth Sh4 million were stolen from the roads offices in what investigators believe was an inside job by officers.
(Edited by R.Wamochie)
