A daughter of businesswoman Mary Wambui, the woman at the centre of a Sh2.2 billion tax evasion case, is now seeking to be discharged from the proceedings before court.
Purity Mungai was in December 2021 charged alongside her mother and their company, Purma Holdings, with knowingly and unlawfully omitting Sh2.2 billion from the company’s income tax returns.
The money, according to the charge sheet, should have been included in the income tax returns submitted to the commissioner for the 2014 income.
But in the new application filed before the Anti-corruption magistrate court, Mungai now claims she has never been lawfully appointed or served as a director of Purma Holdings and, therefore, cannot be legally subjected to the case.
She claims she was illegally listed as a director by the state.
“Therefore, I am legally unfit to be subjected to the instant trial proceedings,” she says.
Mungai wants the court to issue an order discharging her from the trial and proceedings.
Purma was incorporated on February 13, 1996 and Mungai named as a director.
But documents filed in court indicate the accused was born in March 1989. This means when Purma was incorporated, she was about seven years old and incapable of being appointed a director of the said company.
Section 131 of the companies Act provides that a person who has not reached 18 years of age may not be appointed to be a director of the company.
“She is not a legally qualified director and her appointment having been made in contravention to the law is a nullity,” the documents read in part.
The case was to commence hearing on Monday, with the prosecution ready to call its witnesses to the stand. But owing the fresh application by the third accused in the case, magistrate Felix Kombo said it would be prudent the application to be heard first before the main hearing commences.
The state was given time to respond. The matter will be heard on July 14.
-Edited by SKanyara
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