List of Shame: Kambi slips free, Kamau still headed to court

 

From left: Mr Kazungu Kambi, Mr Felix Koskei, Ms Charity Ngilu and Mr Michael Kamau. PHOTOS | FILE 

By BDAfrica.com REPORTER

It’s official: Transport secretary Michael Kamau will appear in court to answer to abuse of office charges relating to a road design tender.

His counterparts Kazungu Kambi (Labour), Charity Ngilu (Lands) and Felix Koskei (Agriculture) have emerged unscathed after their first brush with the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission’s ‘List of Shame’ investigations.

The Director of Public Prosecutions on Thursday revealed he had accepted the EACC’s recommendations to prosecute Kamau, close the file on Ngilu and turn Koskei into a witness against other suspects.

He, however, rejected a recommendation to charge Kambi over two irregular appointments saying he was not satisfied with the evidence.

EACC’s recommendations on Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko over an incident at the Mtwapa weighbridge in Kilifi county were also accepted by the DPP’s office.

Mr Kamau is accused of colluding in the irregular trashing of the Kamukuywa-Kaptama-Kapsokwony-Kimilili road design “leading to massive embezzlement of funds”. He is also under investigation for allegedly illegally contracting a local firm to handle cargo belonging to the Chinese firm contracted to build the standard gauge railway, and directing billions of shillings of SGR-related in consultancy work to a firm linked to him.

Mr Kambi had been accused of irregularly appointing two individuals — Andrew Muigai and Veska Kangongo — as members of the NSSF board of trustees. He is, however, also under investigation for alleged involvement in corruption deals at the National Social Security Fund related to the Tassia Phase II project.

Mrs Ngilu was alleged to have colluded with Mr Evanson Waitiki, a Likoni landowner plagued by squatters, to inflate the market price of his farm by Sh110 million ahead of a sale to the government. She is also accused of scheming to drive a landowner off a parcel of land near State House, Nairobi.

Mr Koskei was accused of renting government land in Tigoni from the Kenya Veterinary Vaccines Production Institute to plant potatoes. He will testify against two KEVEVAPI officials — the managing director and the head of supply chain management — responsible for the 100-acre potato farm.

Investigators are still looking into claims he secretly allocated sugar import permits, demanded bribes from parastatal heads and intimidated those who resisted.