Former Transport minister Michael Kamau at a Nairobi court. FILE PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NMG
A Court of Appeal ruling on a case filed
by former Roads and Transport secretary Michael Kamau has come to haunt
other cases which were filed by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption
Commission (EACC) when there were no commissioners in office.
In
the ruling, the appellate court said the EACC did not have the
authority to carry out investigations in the absence of commissioners.
The EACC commissioners were sacked in April 2015 leaving the anti-corruption body ‘headless’.
The EACC and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) filed several cases at the time the commissioners were not in office.
Last
Thursday, lawyers representing Garissa governor Nathif Jama in a
corruption case in which he and six of his tender committee members are
charged with flouting procurement procedures when hiring seven
ambulances from Kenya Red Cross E-Plus, asked the court to terminate it.
Addressing
the press outside the Garissa Law Courts, lawyer Amunga Cohen, said the
governor’s case falls under the same category and they don’t see any
reason why it should proceed.
Mr Cohen said the work of the secretariat which was in office then ‘is purely administrative’.
During
the proceedings he had told the Garissa senior magistrate Cosmas Maundu
that although the prosecution had presented all the remaining
witnesses, the hearing could not proceed because of the order issued by
the Court of Appeal.
On request by the prosecution for a
last adjournment, mr Cohen and his team vehemently rejected the
request, stating that last time they made a similar request.
“The
prosecution is realising that they did a shoddy investigation and that
is why they are not able to sustain the case,” he said.
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