Court grants EACC orders to seize former Machakos County CEC member’s unexplained assets
31:10:2024: The High Court has allowed EACC to seize unexplained assets worth Kes91,202,892 from former Machakos County Executive Committee (CEC) Member Urbanus Wambua Musyoka.
This comes after the Court found that the assets were acquired through corruption when the official served in the County Government between January 2014 and July 2021.
The said assets consist of a residential building on L.R No. Kibauni/Kamuthwa/168, valued at Kes80,251,815 and Kes10,951,077 in cash, transacted through Musyoka’s Co-operative Bank Account No. 01116005777600 and Equity Bank Account No. 0670191770235.
The judgement, delivered by Justice P.J. Otieno on Monday, ended one of two recovery suits in which EACC is pursuing Musyoka’s unexplained wealth and proceeds of corruption, cumulatively valued at over Kes540 million. The second recovery suit, valued at over Kes450 million, is ongoing before the High Court.
EACC moved to Court after Musyoka, who served as the CEC member for Agriculture, Food Security, and Cooperative Development as well as Chairperson of the defunct County Tender Committee, failed to satisfactorily explain the disproportion between the listed assets and his known legitimate source of income.
Investigations established that between January 2014 and July 2021, Mr Musyoka benefited from fraudulent tenders awarded to companies owned by his wife, Fiona Muthoki Mutisya, brother Antony Mbindyo Musyoka, and close associates, which received a total of Kes457,047,214.80, being proceeds of crime. The companies include Wafih International Limited, Wisdom Holdings Limited, Kikoto General Merchants, and Wemmar Enterprises.
It was also established that he was the beneficial owner of the money the Machakos County Government paid to the companies as he operated the bank accounts as a sole signatory. It was also discovered that the four companies did not pay taxes to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), and as such, they owed KRA a total sum of Kes181,722,145 as unpaid taxes.
Musyoka and his co-accused were arrested in November 2023 and arraigned before the Machakos Anti-Corruption Court. They denied charges of conflict of interest, unlawful acquisition of public property, wilful failure to comply with procurement laws, fraudulent procurement practices, and uttering false documents.
