The disgraced and suspended Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) Managing Director Bernard Njinu Njiraini and seven other accomplices have been charged with stealing and illegal sale of poisonous sugar valued at Sh20million.
Appearing before the Nairobi Chief Magistrate Lucas Onyina yesterday, the eight denied the charges and were released them on a cash bail of Sh400,000 each or a bond of Sh800,000 each.
The eight including three government officers and five business people were charged with various crimes, including, conspiracy to commit a felony, abuse of office, stealing, interference of goods subject to customs control, and being in possession of restricted goods.
In one of the counts, the prosecutor says that on ”diverse dates between December 9, 2022, and May 3, 2023, at an unknown place within the Republic of Kenya, they jointly with others not before the court conspired to steal condemned brown sugar valued at Sh20,064,000 intended to be used as raw material for distribution of industrial Ethanol the property of Kenya Revenue Authority.” The charge sheet read in part.
Those charged alongside Njiraini were suspended Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) deputy commissioner Joseph Kaguru, Derrick Kago, Peter Mwangi, Chrispus Waithaka, Mohammed Ali, Abdi Yusuf and Pollyanne Njeri.
Njiraini faced another count of abuse of office in which it was alleged that he arbitrarily recommended conversion of the condemned sugar into industrial ethanol through the process of distillation which was prejudicial to KRA.
Kaguru also faced an additional charge of abuse of office where the prosecution claimed that he used his office to single source a company trading as Vinepack Limited to convert the condemned brown sugar into ethanol without competitive bidding as directed by the Attorney General’s office.
In the fourth count, all the eight accused persons were charged with stealing 20,064 bags of the condemned brown sugar at Kings Commodities Limited go-down at Makongeni area in Thika town where it had been stored.
The condemned sugar had been intended to be used as raw material for distillation of industrial Ethanol the property of KRA.
Yusuf who is a businessman based in Mombasa faced an additional count of being in possession of the contaminated brown sugar where the charges stated that he was found with 12 bags of 50kilograms each at his Maha Stores located in Shimanzi area in Mombasa.
The pre-trial of the case is scheduled on June 6, 2023.
