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Why EACC wants to investigate Governor Kidero, wife’s fat accounts


An account owned by Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero received Sh317 million over a period of four years in what anti-graft sleuths say is consistent with money laundering.

This was revealed by Mulki Abdi Umar, an investigator at the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), in a row where the anti-graft watchdog is seeking orders to investigate seven other accounts owned by Mr Kidero and his wife Susan Mboya.

Governor Kidero has opposed the application for the search warrant and instead accused Ms Umar of tampering with the court documents relating to the application for the search warrant.

High Court judge Joseph Onguto on Tuesday ordered Ms Umar be cross-examined on the allegations.

SEARCH WARRANTS

In January 19, Ms Umar applied and was granted a search warrant at the Makadara Law Courts for Mr Kidero’s account number 068000004475.

“Upon analysis it was noted that between January 27, 2011 and December 31, 2015, the petitioner received into the said bank account a sum of Sh317,116,000 in cash deposits alone,” Ms Umar says in an affidavit.

She adds that the account also included Sh200 million in a fixed deposit account and other funds invested in fixed deposit accounts.

The investigator further claims that the account’s transactions prove Mr Kidero could easily afford the Sh200 million bribe he is alleged to have given Supreme Court Judge Philip Tunoi.

“The transactions in this account led to discovery of other accounts associated with the petitioner,” she adds.

SEVEN ACCOUNTS

Ms Umar on Tuesday said that she launched an application for search orders for the seven accounts at the Milimani Law Courts on February 22.

However, the Magistrate declined to issue another search warrant on grounds that the EACC had not stated the exact period in which the information was required in connection to the offences being investigated.

The Magistrate ruled that the new search warrant request was a blanket application.

Ms Umar denied tampering claims by Mr Kidero stating that she only briefly perused the court file in less than a minute to read the order against the search warrant in the presence of the court clerk.

But Mr Kidero and his wife allege that Ms Umar tampered with the file arguing that this violated their rights.

Ms Umar has claimed that EACC’s efforts to get a search warrant to investigate the accounts had been leaked to Mr Kidero’s lawyers by the following day (February 23) despite such proceedings being ex-parte.