2 Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) ICT Managers have denied involvement in the theft of 124 containers from the Port of Mombasa.
The containers valued at Sh106 million went missing despite there being over 500 CCTV cameras installed at the facility.
Head of ICT Fatma Nabhany and Principal IT Officer Eda Mwake Ngwatu were accused of failing to deactivate the account of Florence Lang'at from the Kilindini Waterfront Automated Terminal Operation System (KWATOS).
Lang'at is accused of having used her credentials to clear the containers despite retiring from KPA in 2016, long before the heist took place. She has, however, not yet been arraigned in court.
Nabhany and Ngwatu were charged alongsicde 29 other junior staff from KPA and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
[caption caption="Workers at KPA offices"]
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Their lawyer Kevin Anami alluded to a scheme to pin the case on them to cover for unnamed officials who orchestrated the unusual clearance.
"Could it be that because the rest of all the other 29 accused are juniors you decided to charge the two who are ICT managers of KRA and KPA as sacrificial lambs," he posed.
He further asserted that it was not the ICT managers' role to deactivate accounts of former employees.
"My clients had nothing to do with the release of the containers from the port and it was not their responsibility to activate and deactivate the passwords of retired and resigning employees," Anami maintained.
He also called for the ICT Administrator to be arraigned in court as he/she is the one charged with activation, deactivation and maintenance of the staff passwords and the KRA electronic Simba System and the KWATOS system.
[caption caption="President Uhuru Kenyatta during a past visit to the Port of Mombasa"]
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