MP’s change of surety in fraud case takes hours

It took Naivasha MP John Mututho six hours on Thursday to substitute a Sh2 million surety in a fraud case against him.

Mr Mututho sat patiently from 9am to 1.45pm before senior principal magistrate Grace Macharia awaiting the examination of documents presented by Mr James Gitahi Mwangi.

Mr Mwangi presented to court a logbook for his Sh2.5 million Mercedes Benz to bail out the MP to substitute a title deed which had earlier been pledged as surety by a businessman.

The former surety, who had bailed out Mr Mututho, requested the court to allow him to withdraw his title, saying “it had stayed in court for over five years and he wanted to use it.”

Duty for goods supplied to hospital

Mr Mututho has denied obtaining more than Sh40 million from Kenyatta National Hospital purporting that he had paid duty for goods supplied to the hospital. He is out on a Sh2 million bond.

“This is the vehicle whose logbook I have offered to bail out Mr Mututho,” Mr Mwangi told the magistrate at the High Court. But Mr Mwangi said that he had lost his national identity card.

He was asked to proceed to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) building to get a printout of documents proving that a photocopy of an ID card he had was his. The process of verification lasted another three hours.

“I should have been asked to deposit a cash bail,” Mr Mututho lamented over the time-consuming process.