• Chief magistrate Teresia Murigi ordered Mohamud to appear before her on Monday next week after the county boss failed to honour summons thrice.
• Last month, the prosecution sought a warrant of arrest against the county boss after he failed to show up in court without any explanation.
Image: FILE
Wajir Governor Mohamed Mohamud has been ordered to appear in court in a case where senior county officials are accused of illegally withdrawing Sh26.1 and delivering it to him.
Chief magistrate Teresia Murigi ordered Mohamud to appear before her on Monday next week after the county boss failed to honour summons thrice.
A key witness told the Anti-Corruption Court that Mohamud received Sh26.1 million linked to a corruption case facing three county officials and a bank manager.
Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission's investigating officer Steve Wanyama told the court that they have established the amount was withdrawn from Kenya Commercial Bank, Wajir branch, by suspects Daud Abdullahi (Economic Planning executive) and Jeff Mworia (acting County Public Service head), and later delivered it to the governor.
He said the money was divided into two batches.
The first batch was allegedly delivered to the governor at his residence in South B, Nairobi, on October 10, 2018 by Abdullahi, while the other half was taken by Mworia on October 13, 2018.
Abdullahi, Ahmed Sahal (county secretary), Mworia and Sayid Ibrahim (KCB branch manager) have denied charges of embezzling public funds.
Last month, the prosecution sought a warrant of arrest against the county boss after he failed to show up in court without any explanation.
Wanyama yesterday said the case is pegged on procedural withdrawal of money from the Wajir county government imprest accounts.
From the information gathered, the governor instructed the two to withdraw the cash from the County Imprest Account 1141515873 without any supporting document.
During cross-examination by defence lawyers led by Sam Nyaberi, the officer confirmed the two took an overdraft of Sh 25 million since the county's account only had Sh 1.2 million bank balance.
He added that repayment of the loan was done by the county seven days before the suspects were charged in November 2018.
Wanyama said call data showed there was frequent communication among Abdullahi, Mworia and Sahal during and after the transaction.
He said after the withdrawal on October 9, 2018, Abdullahi travelled to Nairobi the following day after diving the money.
Further, the court heard that before the withdrawal, Abdullahi wrote a letter on a Saturday to KCB, changing authority to sign to one person. Mworia was appointed to be the single signatory of the imprest accounts.
The officer said according to their investigations, the county executive did not approve the Finance CEC's decision to make Mworia a sole signatory.
Abdullahi is thus facing a separate count of abuse of office and failure to manage public property.
Sahal also faces a separate charge of abuse of office in which he is accused of using his position to confer a benefit to Mworia by purporting that the county executive had appointed him the signatory of the imprest account.
Mworia faces four other counts that include fraudulent acquisition of public property.
Ibrahim got into trouble for allegedly clearing cheques that did not bear the required signatures.
All the suspects are out on a Sh2 million bond each, with a surety of the same amount.