This archive report was first published on 24 August 2020.
On August 24, 2020, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji announced that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) had given a go-ahead for the prosecution of Maasai Mara Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mary Walingo, for the misappropriation of over Kshs. 177 million belonging to the University.
Professor Walingo will be joined by four other individuals, including Professor Simon Kasaine Ole Seno, Professor John Almadi Obere, Anaclet Biket Okumu, and Noor Hassan Abdi, who will also be apprehended and arraigned in court to face charges.
The DPP stated that the investigations commenced after allegations that several employees of the university were involved in a systematic misappropriation of funds belonging to the said university.
According to the DPP, the allegations were that the Vice-Chancellor, through the finance officers, would give orders to junior officers working in the finance department to write cheques to various banks and present them to the vice chancellor for signature alongside the deputy vice-chancellors or finance officers who were signatories to the University accounts without following the due process and based on fictitious expenditures.
Upon conclusion of the investigations, the Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) forwarded the inquiry file on November 26, 2019, with recommendations that several suspects identified be charged with various offenses.
It was established that in the financial years between 2016-2019, several cheques were used to irregularly withdraw funds from various Maasai Mara University accounts for personal use amounting to a sum of Ksh.177,007,754.
The DPP noted that there was no justification for the withdrawal of the funds from the said accounts as there were no supporting documents for the expenditure.
The DPP added that analysis of the evidence obtained indicates that monies withdrawn by authorized finance officers at the University would be irregularly delivered to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mary Walingo, through her proxies.
The DPP concluded that it is in the public interest to prosecute the case considering that such infractions are crimes against the public.
