The Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission has moved to court to freeze an account after the agency flagged a suspicious payment from the National Youth Service (NYS).
Daily Nation on Friday, March 6 reported that Emily Nyambura reported to the EACC that she had received money into her account on two occasions spanning December 2019 and February 2020.
A primary probe into the matter established that the funds had been deposited into her account without supportive documents.
“The commission reasonably suspects that the said sum is public property being embezzled by public officials at the National Youth Service through remittance to the respondent’s bank account,” the application by EACC read in part.
The court documents showed that on December 30, Nyambura received a sum of Ksh 1,895,366 for allegedly supplying bread to the NYS. Nyambura told the agency that she was puzzled to have received the funds, claiming that she had never been in business with the state agency.
The publication reported that she had instructed her bank's branch in Ruiru to reverse the payment, which the lender did. On February 20, another sum of Ksh 1,862,687 was deposited into her account.
Yet again, she had supplied nothing to the NYS.
On Thursday, March 5, Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji, EACC CEO Twalib Mbarak and Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti held a press conference where they revealed that Ksh385 million had been recovered from five banks that had been used to launder money in the NYS 2 scandal.
However, the lenders entered into plea bargains to spare their chief executives from facing criminal charges for facilitating the looting of funds from the NYS.
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) had conducted a target inspection on five banks which revealed that apart from administrative lapses in the internal anti-money laundering controls of some of the banks, there was possible criminal culpability for violation of the provisions on the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act (POCAMLA).
The investigations were conducted with regard to criminal culpability and forwarded the resultant investigation files relating to the commercial banks.
The DCI, on the basis of the investigations, made recommendations through the files that charges be preferred against the bank officials for violating several provisions of the POCAMLA.
"Our independent perusal of the files revealed that there was sufficient evidence against the said banks and officials for failure to maintain effective programmes against money laundering.
Haji also noted failure to conduct sufficient due diligence on some of the banks' account holders.
The banks on learning of the findings of the investigations, through their representatives, wrote to the DPP requesting to cooperate and resolve the matter in lieu of prosecution.
"We considered the requests in line with the decision to prosecute and the need for the application of alternatives to prosecution and a decision to enter into deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) was accordingly reached," a statement by the DPP read.
A DPA is struck between the prosecution and a corporate organisation involved in an offence. It allows for the DPP to defer prosecution of a particular corporate entity for a set period of time on condition that the organisation undertakes to, meet or continue to abide by conditions of the agreement.
