A senior National Treasury officer wants access to bank accounts and assets that were frozen by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) due to unexplained wealth.
The officer, who is a director at the treasury, wants unconditional access to the money totaling Ksh36 million held at KCB, ABSA and Co-operative Bank. This is despite earning an average net salary of ksh118,691.17.
The Co-operative Bank account has Ksh1.9 million, the KCB account has Ksh5.5 million while the two accounts in ABSA have ksh23.4 million and ksh.5.8 million respectively.
In his application to the High Court, the senior Treasury official wants the investigative agencies barred from extending the restriction.
In July last year, the accounts were frozen on allegations that the civil servant gained his wealth through misappropriation and embezzlement of public funds between April 2015 to April 2020.
The senior official also requested an order to access his five pieces of land in Machakos and Nairobi counties.
He claimed that he can give a breakdown of how he acquired his wealth contrary to the claims made by the EACC.
The Commission told the court that there is a huge disparity between his legitimate income and his assets when obtaining the order to freeze his accounts and assets.
But treasury official refuted the claims by EACC, saying that he has been employed in the Public Service since 1993 adding that he is a Deputy Director at the National Treasury Planning since 2002.
Last year, the anti-corruption agency via Twitter said, that the public servant earned a cumulative net income of 7.1 million between 2015 and 2020 but made suspicious deposits summing up to Ksh36 million besides his salary.
“Investigations further established a pattern of frequent large cash deposits made mostly through the ATM or the dropbox. For instance, in June 2015, he made five cash deposits of ksh400,000 each into his account at ABSA Group account amounting to Ksh2 million over just a few days,” said EACC.
