This archive report was first published on 21 October 2019.
On October 21, 2019, Royal Mabati Factory Managing Director Moses Ikinya Kang'arua and two other company employees, Caleb Opondo Ochieng, Company Finance Director, and Margaret Nyambura Kamau, Warehouse Officer, were charged before a court of law in relation to tax fraud and evasion.
The charges stem from the financial years 2016/2017 and 2017/2018, during which the company allegedly made incorrect statements in income tax returns, reducing its corporate tax liability by Ksh 20,916,643.
According to court documents, Moses Ikinya faces five other tax fraud counts, where he is accused of withholding Ksh. 172,791,540, Ksh. 253,460,464, Ksh. 227 million, and Ksh. 151 million in taxes for the respective financial years.
The MD and the two employees are also accused of under-declaring the weight of imports, resulting in a weight variance of 3.879 tonnes and evading a tax of Ksh. 96,928,765.
Prosecutor Peter Mwenda alleged that the two employees failed to account for goods deposited in a bonded warehouse, substituting and removing goods in a way that allowed them to sneak in steel coils worth Ksh. 25,711,191.
The accused persons denied the charges, but trial Magistrate Bernard Ochoi maintained the previous bond terms, requiring them to pay Ksh. 3 million bond or an alternative Ksh. 1 million cash bail.
The case is scheduled for hearing on October 29, 2019, with a pre-trial set to take place on October 23, 2019.
