A court in Eldoret has allowed the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to proceed with a probe into an alleged irregular payment of over Ksh6.8 million to 17 Members of the Uasin Gishu County Assembly (MCAs).
EACC believes the MCAs were paid the money as allowances for a trip to Arusha Tanzania, which never happened.
Nation reports that each of the 17 MCAs under probe received Ksh400,000 for the ‘fake’ trip which is now being investigated.
The said MCAs were to visit Arusha for benchmarking.
According to an application made before the Eldoret court, EACC is seeking to get among others copies of the mobile phone location of the said MCAs and their mobile money transactions.
“It is necessary that as EACC we be allowed to investigate transactions relating to the cell phone numbers during the said period and obtain certified copies of registration data,” Celestine Owiti, an EACC detective told the court, as quoted by Nation.
The alleged trip is said to have been between December 3 and 18, 2021.
Following the application, Eldoret Senior Principal Magistrate Naomi Wairimu allowed the anti-graft agency to get certified copies of mobile phone transactions, mobile money transfer platform M-PESA statements, as well as location data of the 17 MCAs between the said dates.
The documents will help facilitate the investigation.
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Senior finance officials at the Uasin Gishu County Assembly have already been questioned by EACC detectives handling the case.
The mention of the case has been scheduled for March 30, 2022.
