Water agency boss loses bid to stop his prosecution
John Gichia Mugi, a primary school teacher, has been sentenced to 90 years in prison by a Murang’a court for sexually assaulting 10 students. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Mr Agumba had moved to the High Court to bar his prosecution by the magistrate court as well as to stop investigations by the police and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.
- He is accused of a Sh50 milllion fraud that he is said to have orchestrated during his stint at the helm of the water body, according to one Mr Edgar Otieno who filed the case.
- Mr Otieno had in July obtained orders from Principal Magistrate Thomas Obutu directed to the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) to arrest and prosecute Mr Agumba.
The High Court in Kisumu on Wednesday directed that suspended chief executive officer of Lake Victoria Water Services Board Moses Agumba face corruption charges.
Mr Agumba had moved to the High Court to bar his prosecution by the magistrate court as well as to stop investigations by the police and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.
In his submissions to the court, Mr Agumba accused the magistrate’s court of acting against the law of natural justice by ordering his arrest for a non-disclosed offence and without considering the weight of allegations against him.
But in his ruling on Wednesday, Judge H.K Chemitei dismissed the application on grounds that it was against guidelines in the criminal Procedure Code that allows a magistrate trying a case to permit prosecution be done by the public prosecutor or any person authorized to do so by law.
“The magistrate exercised his discretion and allowed the interested party to carry out private prosecution and this court ought not to interfere with the magistrate’s discretion,” ruled Judge Chemitei.
The embattled chief executive was last year sacked by the board following an order issued by High Court Judge Esther Maina.
He is accused of a Sh50 milllion fraud that he is said to have orchestrated during his stint at the helm of the water body, according to one Mr Edgar Otieno who filed the case.
Mr Otieno had in July obtained orders from Principal Magistrate Thomas Obutu directed to the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission (EACC) to arrest and prosecute Mr Agumba.
The Sh50 million in question was allegedly lost from a Sh15.5 million inflation of the payroll, Sh14 million grant from the African Development Bank that the board claimed did not receive as a grant as well as Sh20 million drawn from the bank’s special account that was never returned.
The chief executive is also on the spot over failure to update the agency’s bank statements and project book accounts since September 2013.
In his Wednesday ruling, Judge Chemitei said: “All is not lost as the applicant has every right to defend his cause before the trial court.”
“By allowing the application this court would be technically sitting as an appellate court in the private prosecution case,” he ruled.
