A government employee will be forced to pay five times money that he is alleged to have stolen from the Makueni District Treasury.
Wycliffe Marege Mitema is accused of acquiring Ksh 3.8 million from the office and will be expected to pay Ksh 16.5 million or serve a jail term for six years.
This is after Justice Mumbi Ngugi upheld a decision by the trial court ruling on the case, saying that the fines imposed on Mitema were not excessive.
While delivering the ruling, the judge stated that the trial court exercised its discretion in directing that the sentences should run consecutively should the fines not be paid.
The trial court had found Mitema guilty of obtaining the said money between October 2008 and September 2009 when Mitema advanced himself unauthorized imprest.
He was facing three accounts namely; unlawful acquisition of public property, failure to comply with guidelines relating to the management of public funds and abuse of office in a case investigated by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in 2012.
The Anti-Corruption Court imposed the mandatory sentence of the fine in line with section 48(2) (b) of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act.
The Act provides if the conduct that constituted the offence resulted in both a benefit and loss described in the subsection, the mandatory fine shall be equal to two times the sum of the amount of the benefit and the amount of the loss.
Judge Mumbi Ngugi is a no nonsense judge who is famed for making a landmark ruling that barred public servants facing corruption charges from accessing their offices creating a huge hurdle for elected governors accused of graft at the time.
Several governors implicated in graft have since been affected by the ruling including; Ferdinand Waititu, Moses Lenolkulal (Samburu), Sospeter Ojaamong (Busia) and Mike Mbuvi Sonko (Nairobi) among others.
