EACC detectives have on Sunday arrested Taita Taveta Deputy Speaker Anselm Mwadime over Ksh 17 million graft case.
The graft case which has been under investigation involved several MCAs from the county accused of embezzling the money during a bonding trip to Zanzibar.
“In the EACC 4th Quarterly Report published on Friday, 2 out of the 24 files recommending prosecution of suspects relate to the County Government of Taita Taveta where the County Assembly leadership and MCAs defrauded the taxpayer by undertaking a bonding and merry-making trip to Zanzibar on public funds amounting to over Kes.7M.
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Some MCAs were overpaid while others who received allowances for the journey did not travel.” said EACC
Through a statement, EACC confirmed that Taita Taveta County Assembly Clerk Gadiel Mnyambo Maganga was among those arrested and linked to the case.
“”The Commission commenced investigations on the complaint and established that 1.    a total amount of Kshs 17 million was utilized for the alleged trip out of which, Kshs. 9,000,000.00 (Nine million) was directly paid to the organizers for the conference and travel arrangements and the balance of Kshs. 8 Million was paid as imprest advance to 30 officers who were to attend the training in Zanzibar,” said EACC
The agency further revealed that the County Assembly used forged travel clearance from the Principal Secretary Ministry of Devolution to travel to Zanzibar. Out of the 30 MCAs paid to travel, only 25 of them travel as planned but spent only a day in Zanzibar as opposed to six nights.
Even though the 25 MCAs who spent a night instead of six caused a loss of Ksh 1,033,288, those who did not travel caused a further loss of Ksh 1,182,263.
ODPP who has received the file recommended prosecution of the two officers for abuse of office, failure to comply with procurement law, uttering false documents, false accounting by a public officer and financial misconduct.
