John Koyi Waluke, Sirisia Member of Parliament, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison or pay a fine of Ksh.727 million.
Waluke is said to have defrauded the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) Ksh.313 million.
Grace Sarapay Wakhungu who is his co-accused was charged alongside the MP. She was handed a 10-year jail term or pay a fine of Ksh.707 million.
Through Erad Supplies & General Contracts Limited, the two, John Waluke and Sarapay Wakhungu were supposed to supply 40,000 tonnes of maize to NCPB in 2004.
Although they pocketted ksh313 million, they never supplied a single grain of maize.
The two own a company Erad Supplies & General Contracts Limited (Erad), the late Jacob Juma was also a director in the company.
The tender was cancelled after Erad Supplies failed to prove it had sufficient funds to supply the maize.
When the tender was cancelled, Erad Supplies moved to court and sued NCPB claiming that by the time the tender was cancelled, Erad supplies had already procured the maize from Ethiopia. By that time the maize was in Djibouti stored by Chelsea Freight, a South African firm.
They claimed that the South African firm in Djibouti stored the maize in Djibouti for 123 days which cost Erad Supplies USD1,146,000 and they had anticipated a profit worth USD1,960,000.
The accused demanded compensation of USD 3,106,000 as loss of profit and storage charges. The arbitrator awarded Erad Supplies USD 3,106,000.00.
NCPB tried to oppose the award but were not successful as Erad swiftly moved to execute the orders.
NCPB accounts were frozen and their assets including office equipment and motor vehicles were attached by auctioneers leading to a loss of ksh310 milllion.
Ethics and Anti Corruption Commision together with South African Authorities conducted an investigation to unravel the truth behind the matter. Evidence from South African Authorities demonstrated that the documents used by Waluke and his co-accused purportedly emanating from South African firms were forgeries.
The directors of Chelsea Freight which John Waluke and Sarapay claimed stored the maize for them, said they had no business with Erad and that they neither owned a warehouse nor dealt with maize.
Out of the ksh313 million that was awarded to Erad supplies, ksh297 million was wired out of NCPB’s account in just two days and it was shared among the directors and lawyers.
The two were charged as below:
They both have 14 days to appeal the ruling.
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