The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) CEO Lerionka Tiampati was among the six senior heads of the parastatal who were on Thursday, April 4, fined Ksh 400,000 each for disobeying court orders.
The others were Kennedy Omanga who is the group company secretary, Francis Macharia, Peter Kinyua, Eston Gakunga Gikore, and Stephen Maina Githiga.
Through their lawyer, they had pleaded with the Court of Appeal to suspend the mitigation and sentencing on the basis they had an application pending in the Supreme Court to stop finalization of the contempt proceedings.
However, Court of Appeal Judges, William Ouko, Fatuma Sichale and John Otieno Odek who were on the bench ordered that failure to honour the fine in seven days, they would serve a jail term of seven months.
Thy had filed an urgent application in the Supreme Court to stop their sentencing.
The same court had on Thursday, March 28, dismissed an appeal by the six. They had filed the appeal after the High Court had found them guilty of the offense.
“The applicants have not demonstrated that there is new and fresh evidence or points of law that would warrant rescission of the impugned ruling of this court dated February 22, 2017,” the court stated.
The six had been found guilty of contempt of court after they were accused of proceeding with an election at Kiru Tea Factory which had been stopped.
It is alleged that they had interfered with the management team of the 8,000 members factory that is in Murang’a county.
They are accused of orchestrating the removal of Geoffrey Kirundi and company secretary Bernard Kiragu on November 27, 2017, against express court orders that barred them pending completion of a leadership wrangles court suit.
