Finance manager who accumulated Sh140m in less than a year ordered to pay Gvt Sh41.2m

EACC wins nine-year battle after court orders former ministry manager to pay  the Government Sh41.2m.

The High Court has ordered a former Water Ministry finance manager to pay the Government Sh41.2 million after he failed to account for part of his wealth.

Stanley Mombo Amuti, who served at the National Water Conservation and Pipeline Corporation (NW&PC) as Finance Manager, could not explain how he accumulated considerable wealth between 1992 and 2008.

Justice Lydia Achode ruled in favour of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) after the commission moved to the High Court to compel Amuti to pay State Sh140 million being bank deposits he had accumulated through alleged fraudulent means and a further Sh32 million being the value of unexplained assets he held.

The anti-corruption agency claimed he had acquired the monies within nine months but the court only established that he could not account for the monies in cash.

“In the present case, I have considered the property acquired at or around the time Amuti  was reasonably suspected of corruption or economic crime; and whose value is disproportionate to his known source of income at or around that time, and for which I consider that there is no satisfactory explanation,”

“I therefore declare that the forgoing sums of monies to be unexplained assets and order that the defendant (Amuti) do pay the Kenya Government Kshs41, 208, 000/=,” Justice Achode’s decision dated  November 23, 2017 reads in part.

The monies include Sh9.5 million which is said to have been advanced to a Mr Samuel Gitonga, Sh15.5 million said to be a fee from a Sudanese National, Sh10.9 million said to be installments paid by Evelyn Mwaka and Anthony Ng’ang’a Mwaura for alleged sale of property, Sh1 million said to be for a community project and the Sh4.3 million seized from his home and office.

EACC, then known as the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) began investigating Amuti on July 12, 2008 when they wrote to him requiring an explanation of the source of his wealth that included several parcels of land in Nairobi and Ngong, motor vehicles, cheques and cash deposits and cash that were disproportionate to his declared source of income. He earned a net monthly salary of Sh180, 031.

The ex-manager told the court that he had worked for 25 years and saved enough while the extra cash was from the estates of his late father which he was an administrator

In 2010, EACC moved to court seeking orders to freeze his accounts.  Amuti then moved to the High Court in 2011 and got temporary reprieve when the decision to probe him was quashed on grounds that EACC never gave him an opportunity to explain himself.

The anti-graft body then moved to the court of appeal and in 2015, the superior court Justices Martha Koome, Hannah Okwengu and Festus Azangalala ruled in its favour paving way for the main suit to proceed.

The EACC told the court that the former finance boss had Sh3.9 million in cash in his house, a further Sh310,000 in cash in his office and two cheques worth more than Sh18 million.

Further investigations regarding the bank accounts revealed that he had accumulated Sh140 million between September 2007 and June 2008 in two accounts one in Barclays Bank and another in a foreign bank — National West Minister Bank, PLC London.