• During yesterday’s proceedings, the accused persons pleaded afresh to the graft charges after the prosecution consolidated Abok’s case with that of Oloo.
• The prosecution presented an amended charge sheet in court with 13 accused persons and 21 counts of graft.
A company and its directors implicated in the Sh4.1 billion fraud at Lake Basin Development Authority Mall in Kisumu have engaged the office of the DPP in a bid to resolve the matter out of court.
Zhang Jing, John Zeyun Yang and Ederman Property Limited have also engaged Treasury PS Julius Muia, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and Lake Basin Development Authority.
The court heard that the last correspondence was exchanged on November 4 this year.
The three were arraigned in 2019 and charged with graft alongside former Kisumu county assembly speaker Onyango Oloo and LBDA managing director Peter Abok. The case has never taken off.
During yesterday’s proceedings, the accused persons pleaded afresh to the graft charges after the prosecution consolidated Abok’s case with that of Oloo, who had been charged in a separate file. The prosecution presented an amended charge sheet in court with 13 accused persons and 21 counts of graft.
The files were consolidated after the Director of Public Prosecutions told the court that two arise from transactions relating to financing, construction and development of the LBDA Lower Kanyakwar Phase 1 Project.
In the process of consolidating the files, some of the accused persons were dropped from the case after the DPP chose to turn them into prosecution witnesses.
Among those whose charges have been dropped are Boniface Simbaa, who will now testify against Oloo and others.
In the amended charge sheet, Abok, Oloo, David Oyosi, George Odawa, Innocent Momanyi, Oscar Ogunde, Vincent Ogenge, Lydia Owino, Jing, Yang, Ederman Property Ltd, Symbion Kenya Ltd and Feradon Associates Ltd have been listed as the accused persons.
It is alleged that between November 2, 2012, and May 2, 2018, Abok, being the managing director, and the rest being members of LBDA board of directors, proprietor of Quantech Consultancy, directors and limited liability companies, conspired to commit an offence of corruption, leading to the loss of Sh4.5 billion.
The money was in respect of a tender for construction, development and financing of a retail mall at Kanyakwar, Kisumu known as the Lake Basin Development Authority, Lower Kanyakwar Phase 1 Project.
They all denied the charges.
But Ederman and its directors informed the court they had filed an application challenging the propriety of the fresh charges levelled against them.
They said they want the court to consider the issues they have raised in their application and for the court to give them an opportunity as plea bargaining engagements are being undertaken.
But magistrate Eunice Kagure, in a brief ruling, said plea bargaining is encouraged, but the same would not operate as a stay of the proceedings in court.
She directed that the matter be mentioned on December 8 to confirm compliance as the DPP discloses other documents in the case to be used when the accused are put on trial.
Edited by A.N