Kenya and Jersey have signed an Asset and Recovery Agreement which will result in the return of Sh450 million in seized corruption proceeds.
The agreement was signed by Jersey’s Attorney General, Mark Temple QC, and Kenya’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador Manoah Esipisu.
This comes after a total of Sh450 million seized from former Kenya Power Managing Director Samuel Gichuru and former Finance Minister Chris Okemo will be repatriated to Kenya from the United Kingdom following the signing of the agreement.
Okemo and Gichuru are facing charges of money laundering and misconduct in public office on the United Kingdom’s Jersey Island.
It is alleged that the two defrauded millions of shillings from Kenya Power and Lighting Company between 1998 and 2002 and hid proceeds in offshore accounts in the UK.
However, in 2016, the Jersey-registered company, Windward Trading Limited, pleaded guilty to four counts of money laundering in a Jersey court.
The court ruled that the company, whose ultimate owner was Gichuru, should be stripped of more than $4.9m (£3.6m) in assets for money laundering.
The illegal funds, expected to be channeled back into the country, will be used to support the Government’s ongoing response to the Covid-19 pandemic after a decision by the Framework for the Return of Assets from Corruption and Crime in Kenya (FRACCK).
The FRACCK was signed in the presence of former UK Prime Minister Theresa May in August 2018, by the President of Switzerland H.E. Alain Berset, during his official visit to Kenya in July 2018, and by Jersey’s Minister for External Relations, Senator Ian Gorst, in his official visit to Kenya in December 2018.
With the assistance of Jersey Overseas Aid, two third-party suppliers were selected to deliver these programmes in Kenya namely: Crown Agents and Amref Health Africa.
The ARA sets out that percent of the funds will be allocated to the procurement of essential medical equipment, including Intensive Care Units and hospital beds, through Crown Agents.
The remaining 10 percent of the funds will support a community-based project with Amref Health Africa, which will strengthen healthcare worker capacity and enhance home-based care.
“I am delighted that we have concluded this agreement to return these funds to Kenya to support their efforts in combating Covid-19,” said Senator Ian Gorst, Jersey’s Minister for External Relations.
Esipisu, who was once the President’s spokesman, said the Fracck agreement was a “huge contribution” to Uhuru’s agenda as it sent a signal that “corrupt people will not be safe simply because they hide their money abroad”.
He added, “Passionately, that “these are funds stolen from Kenyans, looted from Kenyans, and with this agreement, these funds are being returned to assist the Kenyan people for whom they were meant in the first instance. So this is a victory for the Kenyan people.”
With the funds now on their way from Jersey to Kenya, the focus turns to the possible extradition from Kenya to Jersey of the two accused men.
At the beginning of February, extradition proceedings finally got underway in Nairobi’s City Magistrates’ Court, after a 10-year legal battle over whether the government’s chief legal officer or the public prosecutor should be leading the case.