Ex-KVDA boss in Catch-22 as arrest looms

Before he was thrust into the limelight, Mr David Kipchumba Kimosop had for 19 years worked as a banker and his main concern was how to generate revenue for his employer’s shareholders while ensuring customers were getting quality services.

CONTROVERSY

After a tumultuous tenure as the Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA) boss that was marked by one controversy after another, eventually leading to his sacking, Mr Kimosop’s dilemma right now is whether he should return to Kenya and what would follow after that.

Mr Kimosop’s lawyer Katwa Kigen told a court he is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but one thing is certain — he will have to present himself to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) immediately after landing in Nairobi or get arrested.

Mr Kimosop is the only big-name suspect in the Sh63 billion Kimwarer and Arror dams scandal who is yet to be arrested.

With former Treasury Cabinet secretary Henry Rotich, former principal secretaries Kamau Thugge and Susan Koech, and National Environment Management Authority Director-General Geoffrey Wahungu having been charged and released, all eyes are now on Mr Kimosop.

Mr Rotich, Dr Thugge, Dr Koech and Mr Wahungu on Tuesday night resisted an attempt to take them to the Industrial Area and Langata prisons as they waited for their bail to be processed. The four staged a sit-in in the basement of the Milimani Law Courts as the rest of the accused joined other suspects for the short ride to their respective prisons.

A prison van waited outside for close to three hours as their lawyers struggled to get them freed. Although all of them had deposited the money they were required to pay, their lawyers were having a problem getting the payments approved as it was past government working hours.

Sources told the Nation that the Industrial Area Remand Prison had already prepared to receive the suspects. “They will go home, all of them,” Mr Kigen told us at some point.

Meanwhile, the DCI last evening said most of the suspects who had not turned up in court had already presented themselves as directed.

PLEA TAKING

“There are some who presented themselves Tuesday and others Wednesday,” Mr John Kariuki, the director of the Investigations Bureau at the DCI, told the Nation. “The bail terms are the same and we will adhere to what the court said, which is to present them for plea-taking.”

By last evening, Mr Kimosop had not showed up at the DCI.

On Tuesday, his lawyer requested the court to give him more time to present his client for plea-taking because he had travelled outside the country.

“David Kimosop travelled to Congo and he was supposed to have landed on Saturday,” Mr Kigen said. “I requested him to come earlier and he said that by Thursday (today) he shall have landed. I am requesting to present him on Friday for the plea.”

In the first charge facing Mr Rotich, the DPP indicated that the former CS, Dr Thugge, Dr Koech, Mr Jackson Kinyanjui, Mr Titus Murithii and Mr Kimosop allegedly conspired with the directors of Italian company CMC Di Ravenna to defraud taxpayers in the construction of Kimwarer Dam.

“Between December 17, 2014 and September 27, 2018 jointly conspired to engage in a scheme to defraud the government $244,422,163 (Sh25 billion) in respect of Kimwarer multipurpose dam by entering into a commercial loan while disguising it as a government-to-government loan,” the charges read.

Mr Kimosop is also accused alongside Mr Kennedy Nyachiro, Mr Kinyanjui, Mr Muriithi, Mr Paulo Porcelli, CMC Di Ravenna-Itinera JV and CMC Di Ravenna-Itinera JV Kenya of jointly conspiring to defraud the government of Sh27,740,760,550 between December 17, 2014 and September 27, 2018.