NOCK officials charged with theft of Sh26m

Three National Olympics Committee of Kenya (NOCK) officials have been charged with theft of Sh25 million and fraud at a Nairobi court.

The three, Vice-Chairman Pius Ochieng, Secretary General Francis Kanyiri Paul and the Head of Mission Stephen Arap Soi appeared before chief magistrate Daniel Ogembo and denied the charges.

The court heard that Kanyiri and Ochieng committed the offence on diverse dates between June 1, 2016 and July 31, 2016 in the Nairobi’s NOCK’S offices at Plaza 2000 Building within Nairobi County.

They were accused that jointly with others not before the court and being officials of NOCK, they omitted to make inventory of the Nike kit uniform donated by Nike Company to be used by team Kenya at the Rio Olympics 2016.

Mr Soi was charged with stealing Sh112,000 - the property of the Ministry of Sports, Culture and Arts on July 20, 2016 at Kencom House within Nairobi County.

He was again charged with failing to report conveyance of monetary instruments out of Kenya, contrary to the law on July 20, 2016 at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi.

Soi is accused of failing to report the conveyance of monetary instruments valued at Sh25 million to the authorised officers at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport during their exit to Brazil.

The chairman was also charged with several other counts of stealing over Sh26 million contrary to the law, the property of the Ministry of Culture and Arts.The prosecution made an application to have accused deposit their passport at the court for security purposes.

Prosecutor Eddie Kadebbe told the magistrate to adopt the same conditions that were given to the accused when they first appeared before the court.

He wanted the accused to be restrained from accessing NOCK Offices pending the conclusion of the case.

The defence opposed the application by the prosecution, claiming that at this point the investigations are through and the accused are willing to co-operate with the prosecution.

They added that the accused will not interfere with the witnesses who among them are police officers.

Magistrate Ogembo did not allow the application by the prosecution to have accused restrained from accessing NOCK offices.

“The accused will be allowed to access offices so long as they do not interfere with the investigations because the investigations are complete,” said Ogembo.