EACC forensic and asset investigator has today testified against former Nairobi County Government chief Finance officer Jimmy Kiamba and County Secretary Lilian Ndegwa in the fraud case against them.
During his testimony, Tabu Luanga told the Milimani Anti-corruption Chief Magistrate Kennedy Bidali of an elaborate scheme where irregular cheques were cashed earlier before payment vouchers were raised and none of which were authorized, voted for , and neither subjected to internal audit(s) as required in law.
Luanga told the court that investigations revealed that over Sh 20 million was fraudulently obtained by the accused persons from the Nairobi County accounts held at Co-operative bank between January 1 to December 31, 2014.
He said Kiamba and Ndegwa were signatories to irregular and fraudulent payments made to payees Ephantus Mwangi, Nancy Kambi and others “over the counter.”
“The documents we retrieved for the payment of toners and computer accessories were irregular cheques were written first and then payment vouchers after,” the witness said.
Luanga told the court that officers from his office recovered several payments vouchers from Kiamba’s premises and his offices amounting to over Sh 2.8 million.
He said he found that same signatories signed vouchers and cheques and at one stage what happened was that one payment voucher was used to pay two cheques,which was a fraud.
“A suspicious payment of Sh 700,000 to Regina Kipkemoi, accused one, former Kiamba secretary being purchase of stationery for the department of finance and economic planning was authorised by accused two, Kiamba and singed by former accounting secretary Lilian Ndegwa, the court was told,” Luanga added.
The court heard that during the investigations, the investigator further recovered documents and established that there was a parallel payment system that was being used at the city county government of Nairobi Chief Finance Office when documents purported to be for procurement of stationery, accessories and toners for the department of finance and Economics, adding that the money was paid to Kiamba’s secretary Regina Chepkemoi, contrary to procurement laws.
“The strange thing was that the cheques were not authorised, they were issued from the air, somebody just sat and wrote a cheque,” the witness said.
There were payments between April and June 2014 signed byKiamba and Ndegwa payable to Regina Chepkemoi and Nancy Kambi.
Kiamba’s secretary also raised a voucher on October 24 2014 which was paid and the prosecution states that this was irregular as a voucher is to be raised by an accountant.
“This is irregular…they bear a semblance of a signature by Lilian Ndegwa, it is carbon copy but the original has no signature,” the witness said.
Another cash transfer document signed by Ndegwa and Kiamba in payment of Sh 690,000 to Regina Chepkemoi and was cashed at the counter respectively on August 12 2014 and September 16 2014.
“It means the cheque was written first in August and payment voucher after cashing, which was an irregularity,” Luanga added.
In the case former County secretary Lilian Ndegwa and chief finance officer Jimmy Kiamba are among the officials charged with defrauding City Hall through ghost procurement. Other officials charged are Regina Rotich, Stephen Osiro and Nancy Kiruri.
The suspects have denied multiple charges of economic crimes arising from alleged false procurement.
