Ethics and Anti Corruption (EACC) detectives on Tuesday nabbed four senior Taita Taveta county officials who used the pretext of commemorating World War 1 to allegedly embezzle over Ksh7 million from county coffers.
In a statement posted on its X handle, the investigative body confirmed the arrest of the quartet who were established to be well connected senior officers within the devolved unit.
“Four senior Taita Taveta County officials who embezzled over Ksh 7 million in the pretext of commemorating World War 1 have been arrested.”
EACC stated that the four were placed in custody and had been taken to EACC's Coastal regional offices in Mombasa for further grilling.
“The four suspects are currently being escorted to EACC Lower Coast Regional Offices in Mombasa for further enforcement action.”
Details have emerged of how the four conspired to forge and falsify some of the documents that were used to account for the money.
Some of the vendors who were listed as having done business with the county for the event denied supplying anything thus raising eyebrows on the expenditure of the event.
Dig Deeper: The World War One commemoration event is an annual event held by the Taita Taveta County Government and it attracts a huge number of local and foreign tourists as well as foreign diplomats from the UK, France, Germany, Canada and Belgium.
In World War One, British and German troops fought in various areas in Taita Taveta including Maktau, Salaita (Slaughter Hill) and the Taveta border post.
Salaita Hill was the site of the first large-scale battlefield of World War One involving British, Indian, Rhodesian and South African troops. The battlefields have since been marked as tourism hotspots.
In 2015, the National Museums of Kenya gazetted 15 sites in Taita Taveta County as sites of historical interest and significance.
They include; Salaita Hill, Voi Commonwealth War Graves, Indian Commonwealth War Graves, Kenyatta Caves in Wundanyi and First Old District Commissioners’ House in Taveta.
Others are; the German Fortress, Maktau Picket Hill, Indian military cemetery, Taveta ACK Holy Trinity Church and Mahoo and Mahoo Pastor’s Residence.
Traces of World War 1 missiles and Voi, Taveta, Salaita, Bura and Maktau mass graves are among the visible remnants of the war.
