Senior Kenya prison officers surcharged Sh30,000 for misusing GK vehicles

VOI: Scores of senior Prisons Officers in Taita Taveta County have been surcharged for allegedly misusing government vehicles attached to penal institutions in the area.

According to authorities, the affected officers were subjected to administrative action at the correctional facilities Orderly Rooms. Taita-Taveta County has four GK Prisons namely Manyani Maximum Prisons, Wundanyi, Voi Remand and Taveta, with a total of 1,480 inmates.

County Prisons Commander Nicholas Maswai confirmed the surcharge Tuesday but declined to disclose the number of the affected officers between December last year to date.

But sources told The Standard that a total of four senior officers had been penalized within that period.
Mr Maswai who was recently promoted to the position of Senior Assistant Commissioner of Prisons (SACP) following the Presidential directive said several personal files for some prisons officers were still pending at the Commissioner's office in Nairobi for action.

Mr Maswai disclosed that one of the vehicles attached to Wundanyi GK was arrested near Mariakani Township along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway during the December holidays by the Commissioner of Prisons Josiah Osugo.

The SACP who is also the officer in-charge of Manyani Maximum Prisons said the Commissioner caught the vehicle transporting an inmate serving an eight year jail term from Wundanyi to Shimo La Tewa Prisons in Mombasa during over the weekend.

"It was wrong to note that the vehicle had no number plate at the time of the arrest and the two prisons warders' escorting the inmate were not in uniform as required in law, It is also wrong to transfer an inmate during weekends," said Mr Maswai.

He at the same time said the vehicle was also carrying unauthorized members of the public in total disregard of the law.

"It is wrong to carry a hard core criminal with members of the public. The Commissioner of Prisons was angered by the fact that the government vehicle was also ferrying some livestock belonging to a senior prisons officer from the county to Mombasa County," he said.

He said the Prisons Commissioner ordered members of the public on board out of the vehicle and the inmate driven back to the prison of origin.

Speaking to Standard Tuesday, Maswai said the commissioner ordered the officers punished for misusing the government vehicle.
"It is illegal for prisons officers to transport inmates with members of the public. The officers involved broke the law and were surcharged," he said.

Prisons officers interviewed said the affected officers were each surcharged Sh 30,000. Maswai however, clarified that the officers were surcharged between Sh3,000 and Sh5,000 in accordance with the law.

"The law says that two-thirds of one’s salary is deducted to discipline those found violating the law," he said.

The incident comes at a time when cases of misuse of government vehicles by public officials in both the county and national government continue to be reported in the county.

In a recent incident, a police vehicle was found in Nakuru County ferrying tones of the East African Sandalwood. Last week, another vehicle belonging to a State Corporation was also found transporting several litres of Chang'aa in Narok County.

In another incident at Voi town, a former civic leader Henry Mwangemi confronted senior officials of the Ministry of Health for packing an ambulance outside a bar beyond working hours.

The politician took to task the officials who included two medical doctors and a driver to explain what they were doing at 1am in a bar yet the ambulance was supposed to have been packed at Wesu Sub-County Hospital yard to assist patients.

It took the intervention of security personnel who were also in the bar to end the scuffle. The health officials left the popular entertainment joint in a huff.

Sources told The Standard that the officials hid the vehicle in unknown place and later came back to the bar where they continued socializing to dawn.