Former Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu is set to continue serving his 12-year prison sentence at Kamiti Maximum Prison after the High Court rejected his bond review application.
Waititu was convicted in February for failing to safeguard public funds after allegedly irregularly receiving Ksh25 million from a company following an unlawful tender award. He was ordered to either pay a fine of Ksh53.5 million or serve 12 years in prison.
However, while appearing before the court on Wednesday, Waititu, through his lawyer, requested the court to review his bond terms by substituting the Ksh53 million bank guarantee bond with cash deposits; however, Justice Lucy Njuguna rejected his application.
According to Njuguna, who noted that Waititu's legal team had made three such applications before, granting such a request would slow the case.
“I will not vary those orders. Honestly, I did the best I could based on the material placed before me. You placed material that persuaded me, and I was gracious enough to grant those orders,” the judge stated.
“That’s why I gave 120 days, and for the record, the 120 days start from today. It’s on that basis that I said no more fresh applications should be made so that we concentrate on the appeal and get it out of the way,” she added.
According to Waititu's lawyer, Chris Mutuku, Waititu had failed to raise the guarantee because commercial banks had refused to facilitate it.
“This application is necessitated by the fact that banks have declined to provide the guarantee. My client has been under Kenyatta National Hospital receiving treatment and remains under custody despite the orders previously granted. We urge this court to consider substitution with a cash deposit,” the lawyer stated.
In his ruling in February, the Milimani Anti-Graft Court Chief Magistrate Thomas Nzioki noted that Waititu's conduct could not be forgiven since his actions while in office undermined the tenets of good governance.
During the same time, Waititu's wife, who was also involved in the graft case, Susan Wangare, was ordered to pay a fine of half a million or serve a sentence of one year in prison.
Waititu has been having run-ins with the prosecutorial agencies over graft allegations since his exit from office in 2019.
In the ruling delivered on Tuesday, September 16, Njuguna declined Waititu's application to overturn his 12-year imprisonment sentence, after she determined that the former Governor's appeal lacked proper grounds.
