• Manduku is set to be arraigned today to face graft charges related to the Inland Container Depot scandal.
• He is facing an array of charges, including abuse of office, willful disobedience of statutory duty, neglect of official duty, breach of trust and conspiracy to defeat justice.
Image: FILE
Kenya Airports Authority managing director Daniel Manduku is set to be arraigned today to face graft charges related to the Inland Container Depot scandal.
The MD was nabbed by Directorate of Criminal Investigations officers in Nairobi after months of investigations into leased extra storage space for containers by the agency.
The KPA boss is becoming the latest high-flying government official to be charged with corruption. He was detained at the DIC headquarters along Kiambu Road before he moved to Muthaiga police station last evening.
Manduku is facing an array of charges, including abuse of office, willful disobedience of statutory duty, neglect of official duty, breach of trust and conspiracy to defeat justice. He is accused alongside Kevin Lewis, the Kenya Revenue Authority official commissioner in charge of customs and border control. Lewis was also arrested.
Manduku is accused of unlawfully recommending the gazettement of Nairobi Inland Cargo Terminal (NICT) as KPA's peripheral facility, yet the firm did not tender. His action to endorse NICT saw seven bidders unfairly kicked out of a tender for the provision of container warehouse services for KPA in Nairobi.
Manduku is also accused of colluding with Lewis to defeat justice by causing the payment of Sh3.1 million for KPA's peripheral facility licence for Michel Cotts Freight Kenya Ltd.
The payment, the detectives established, was to correct illegality of nonpayment of the same that was under investigation by the DCI. It was allegedly made between December 31, 2019, and January 27, 2020.
"Between March 21, 2019, and June 14, 2019, within the Republic of Kenya, jointly with others not before the court, [they] connived to unlawfully gazette Nairobi Inland Cargo Terminal (NICT) as a Kenya Ports Authority peripheral facility, which did not meet the requirements for gazettement,” one of the draft charges read.
Manduku is also accused of neglecting duty as KPA chief accounting officer by failing to ensure due process was followed during the appointment and gazettement of NICT.
Lewis faces a separate charge of willfully neglecting his duties by failing to adhere to regulations governing the appointment of a facility as a KPA peripheral storage facility. The KRA official is said to have illegally gazetted Mitchell Cotts as KPA's peripheral storage facility, despite the warehouse failing to meet requirements with respect to separate entry and exit areas.
The official also aided the gazettement of NICT, yet the facility did not meet requirements with respect to a customs warehouse.
Detectives have been probing how the multimillion-shilling tender was awarded. It was linked to perennial delays of cargo clearance at the ICD in Nairobi.