This archive report was first published on 23 October 2019.
On October 23, 2019, former Deputy Auditor-General Stephen Kinuthia was charged with conspiracy to steal Sh100 million in a corruption scandal at the Auditor General's office.
Kinuthia was charged alongside 13 others, including officials from the Auditor General's office and directors of eight companies suspected of being involved in the corruption syndicate.
The charges were the culmination of five years of investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), which filed a suit to recover the Sh100,675,680 suspected to have been stolen through a contract to supply Audit Vault software at the Auditor General's office.
EACC alleged that the contract was inflated from the original Sh53 million and that the procurement was done irregularly since the company awarded the tender had no capacity to deliver the audit vault software.
According to EACC, the Auditor General's office paid Sh100,675,680 to Open Systems Integration (OSI) Kenya Ltd even before the audit vault software materials were inspected or supplied.
The anti-graft agency alleged that as soon as the company received the payments, it started dishing out kickbacks through a chain of different bank accounts and law firms used as conduits of the proceeds.
Kinuthia allegedly received Sh27 million as kickbacks, which he used to purchase three prime plots in Makuyu town.
When presented with the charges, all the accused denied them before chief magistrate Douglas Ogoti.
They were locked up for another night as they await a ruling on their bail application.
