This archive report was first published on 15 May 2020.
On Wednesday, Kilifi County Secretary Arnold Mkare and 10 other senior officials were arrested by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) over the construction of the Sh850 million Kilifi Medical Complex Hospital, which has been under construction since 2017.
The hospital was recently converted into a Covid-19 isolation centre, and the EACC is investigating expenditure on the project. According to the EACC, the officials obstructed justice by failing to submit requested information, a claim they deny and in turn accuse the commission of malice and rushing to arrest them instead of allowing them to provide the information as promised.
Chief Officer Medical Service Bilal Madzayo, his public health counterpart Alio Ibrahim, Chief Officer Finance Ben Kai, Head of Supplies Riziki Matano, and County Attorney Bibi Fondo are among those arrested and later freed.
According to EACC Upper Coast boss Ignatius Wekesa, the commission had sent several letters to the county government requesting information, but they were ignored. Wekesa stated that the arrest comes after several notices were ignored by the county government, which failed to provide documents to assist the commission with its investigation into the misappropriation of legal fees.
However, Governor Amason Kingi denied that his officers deliberately refused to release the documents to EACC officers, stating that the commission failed to observe the Access to Information Act, 2016, which requires them to issue a notice on their area of interest of investigation to give the county officers adequate time to compile and produce the document as required.
“The officers stormed county offices and demanded documents on the medical complex. “The document is in huge volumes and needs time to be photocopied. How do you expect them to photocopy such a document within two hours?” Governor Kingi posed.
