DPP dismisses letter inviting Ruto to testify in dam scandal
Director of Public Prosecutions (DDP) Noordin Haji has dismissed a letter circulating on social media purporting to invite Deputy President William Ruto as a key witness in Arror and Kimwarer dam scandal.
The fake letter states that Haji had summoned Ruto as a prosecution witness following his remarks in 2019 that the government had not lost Sh21 billion and that only Sh7 billion taxpayers’ money was lost in the dams’ scandal.
“The above letter circulating on social media is fake. We wish to state that no such letter has been written in relation to the Arror and Kimwarer case,” said DPP.
Last week, DPP sought to amend the Sh63 billion corruption charges against former Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Henry Rotich, and others over the Kimwarer and Arror Dams case.
Through special prosecutor, Taib Ali Taib, and Deputy Director of ODPP, Alexander Muteti, DPP want to combine Rotich’s case with that of former Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA) Managing Director, David Kimosop, following a review of the two graft cases.
The amendments seek to drop the number of accused people from 18 to 9 and reduce the counts from 40 to 30 in the two matters.
Also, if the amendments are incorporated, the number of witnesses will be reduced from 104 to 52, thus expediting the determination of the two cases which have great public interest.
The DPP noted that the consolidation will save precious judicial time and other scarce resources. Currently, there are three existing court files of Rotich, Kimosop and the file on the Italian firm implicated in the multi-billion-shilling dams saga.
“The prosecution will be relying on the same witnesses, exhibits in the two graft cases thus need to have them heard together,” Muteti stated.
However, former CS Rotich’s lawyer, Kioko Kilukumi, together with other lawyers informed the court that they will be opposing the application for consolidation of the two cases.
Kilukumi requested to be granted more time to file a detailed responses as to why the two matters should not be consolidated.
He added that it was the fifth attempt by the DPP to amend the charges in the corruption cases over the multi-billion projects.
