Pastor Ng’ang’a’s bank accounts frozen in Sh 2m ‘seed’ money dispute
Embattled Pastor James Maina Ng’ang’a who was recently arraigned in court for causing a fatal accident that resulted to the death of a woman while her husband suffered injuries now has his bank accounts frozen because of a Sh2 million debt.
A Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate issued an order requiring that his accounts with two local banks be frozen following the three-year debt dispute of Sh 2,179,495 to Mr Geoffrey Kimani Ndungu.
Mr Ndungu had taken the dispute before a Commercial Court in April and was seeking that the televangelist should pay him back the debt or it be recovered from the Trustees of the Neno Evangelism Centre’s accounts.
And the High Court ordered that the Centre’s bank accounts at Equity and Cooperative bank to remain frozen, a decision which Senior Principal Magistrate Linus Kassan also endorsed on August 4.
“The order issued in April 16 is hereby issued in this case in which it is claimed that Sh2, 179,495 is owed by the debtor and that the accruing amount in the two banks should be used to settle that debt in favour of Mr Ndungu,” Mr Kassan ruled.
According to Mr Ndungu, he moved the funds from his account to one of the Centre’s in April of 2012 after receiving prayers from Ng’ang’a for mental problems.
He claims he was not in his right mind and he has since tried effortlessly to retrieve the money from Mr Ng’ang’a before moving to court.
CHURCH’S BANKERS
But Mr Ng’ang’a through his lawyer Assa Nyakundi claimed that the pastor was in fact never issued with the case documents but only received information from the church’s bankers about issued orders.
He however acknowledged that he later got the case documents and in his response to the matter he denied that he had obtained the cash from Mr Ndungu’s account.
“Without prejudice Mr Ng’ang’a denies that he received any money from Mr Ndungu in the circumstances described or if at all such money was deposited in his account, it was done without any coercion, inducement hence it was an absolute gift to him,” Mr Nyakundi said.
Cooperative bank through its Ukulima branch Manager Susan Miriti said that the church’s account had only Sh 88,829 which is insufficient to settle the said debt. However the bank asked the court to have the costs of the suit deducted from the balance and pay the debt with the rest.
“We are willing to pay Mr Ndungu the amount in the debtors account less the cost of defending this suit which is Sh 15, 000,” Ms Miriti said.
Mr Ndungu said that he had given the case documents to the Centre’s receptionist and faulted the Pastor of having a history of denials.
The matter was to be heard yesterday but it did not proceed and will be coming up on September 22.