Standard Chartered Bank has terminated two accounts holding about Sh4.3 million linked to companies of a businessman alleged to have received Sh1.61 billion from National Youth Service (NYS).
Businessman James Nderitu Thuita is linked to companies; Active Electrons Africa limited, First Supplies and Ameritrade limited.
This has now forced Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) to seek an order for funds to be transferred to its account at KCB, Kenyatta International Convention Centre(KICC) branch.
“There is imminent danger the respondents shall dispose, transfer and dissipate the said funds as there are no court orders currently preserving the funds in issue,” said ARA in the application before High Court Judge James Wakiaga.
Thuita is said to have received Sh1.1 billion from NYS between March and October 2017 for goods and services that he did not deliver, yet the money flowed into his 10 bank accounts.
In his defence, Thuita told the court that his business involves transferring money from one entity to another.
Questioned further, he argued that he runs a wide range of businesses.
Thuita produced two payment entries from the Lands ministry to his accounts, one for Sh24 million, the other for Sh36 million, to prove that he has been doing business with a number of government entities outside of the NYS.
The explanation, however, failed to convince Justice Mumbi Ngugi, who allowed ARA to go after the suspect’s wealth.
According to Justice Ngugi, Thuita failed to show what he supplied to the NYS for the money he received.
“In my view, the respondents needed to go beyond the allegation that they have wide-ranging businesses and show how these businesses translated to the credits of millions from the State Department of Public Service and Youth under which the National Youth Service falls,” ruled Ngugi.
Lawyer Peter Ngumi for ARA told the court that Thuita’s hand in the NYS cookie jar was traced through five companies: Flagstone Merchants Ltd, Firstling Supplies Ltd, Excella Supplies Ltd, Flagstone Co Ltd, and Interscope Tech and Services.
It is through these companies – one of which Thuita co-owned with his estranged wife Yvonne Wanjiku, and another with Betty Wajewa, who according to court records is the suspect’s wife – that the NYS loot came in, was distributed and the bigger chunk of it vanished.
By the time ARA was combing through Thuita’s accounts in 2018, only Sh41 million was left across two bank accounts.
“Upon analysing the bank statements and documents concerning the accounts of the respondents, it emerged that they received funds fraudulently from the NYS and associates, split in several transactions,” the court heard.
“The money received from NYS and associates through their business entities and personal accounts was further intra-transferred into accounts owned by their family members and associates,” Ngumi told the court.
Some of the stolen money, the court heard, ended up as tax paid to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
The court was told that the taxman may have earned Sh1 million from the loot, which can neither be frozen nor recovered.
The court further heard that Thuita received Sh195 million from NYS on March 21, 2017.
However, the court concluded that the money that landed in his accounts in the first payment was higher, with Ngugi noting that the actual amount was Sh235 million.