The DPP has filed an appeal challenging the acquittal of 23 former NYS officials charged with Sh47.6 million graft.
Through senior state counsel Joseph Riungu, the DPP moved to the High court seeking orders to quash the lower court’s decision.
The case involves former Devolution PS Peter Mangiti, former NYS deputy director general Adan Harakhe and former Ministerial Tender Committee chairman Hassan Noor, and 20 others.
The DPP said trial magistrate Kennedy Bidali, who has since been transferred to Naivasha, acquitted the officials without analysing all prosecution evidence.
“The trial magistrate erred in law in finding that the prosecution had not established a prima facie case against the accused on all counts when it had done so,” Riungu said.
He said the magistrate failed to analyse the evidence brought against all the accused persons before ruling that there was insufficient evidence against them.
“The judge was wrong to clear the three on counts of conspiracy to commit an offence of corruption and failure to comply with the procurement law,” Riungu added.
He said this was despite the lower court making a finding that there were many violations of procurement procedures.
On March 8, 2018, the magistrate acquitted 23 out of the 24 accused persons in Sh47 million NYS graft case for lack of evidence.
Bidali invoked Section 210 of Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) to effect the decision.
The magistrate, however, found Selesio Karanja, a former secretary of the opening tender committee of NYS, with a case to answer in a charge of fraudulent procurement practice.
Karanja is accused of engaging in a fraudulent act in a procurement namely inserting the name of Dama Services Ltd in the tender opening register for the procurement of training materials in the Automotive Engineering faculty tender No.NYS/RT/29/2014-2015 which the said Dama services had not been approved for the said tender.
