Samburu governor Samuel Kasaine has been barred by the High Court from accessing his 5 bank accounts as the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) increased pressure on him in a bid recover over Ksh1.6 billion suspected to have been stolen from the county.
Justice John Onyiengo ruled that the governor should not be allowed to transact or withdraw any amount from five accounts registered in his company’s name.
In its application, EACC claimed that the governor was likely to withdraw and hide money he fraudulently acquired from the county government before the investigations are complete.
“In light of the ongoing investigations into the Ksh1.6 billion financial misappropriation in Samburu County, the commission is reasonably apprehensive that the governor will transfer, withdraw or in other ways deal with the money to defeat the cause of justice,” argued lawyer Diana Kenduiwa.
She also claimed that after the governor was elected in 2013, he went ahead to register Oryx Service Station in order to siphon public funds from the county.
Kenduiwa went ahead to state that between 2013 and 2018, the governor received in excess of Ksh80,763,715 in his personal account from the county coffers by purporting that his company had supplied diesel and petrol for use by the county vehicles.
This order comes barely two weeks after he was stopped from disposing off four prime properties in Nairobi that were allegedly acquired using the proceeds of crime.
Among the property owned by the governor is a Ksh300 million palatial house that sits on an approximately one-acre parcel of land in Karen, Fair Acres area and was acquired in the financial year 2016/17.
The governor’s residential home in Milimani estate, Maralal town. The property, valued at Ksh100 million was developed between 2016 and 2017.
