It’s like the scandals our political leaders are involved in never end.
Yesterday evening, Member of Parliament for Lugari, Ayub Savula was arrested and taken to the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) headquarters for interrogation.
#ARRESTED: Lugari Member of Parliament,the Honorable Ayub Savula Angatia,has been arrested this evening by @DCI_Kenya Detectives for conspiring to steal Ksh.122,335,500 from the Ministry of Information Communication and Technology. To be arraigned in court on Monday. pic.twitter.com/G9gYrKprVG
— DCI KENYA (@DCI_Kenya) October 26, 2018
According to a tweet from the office of the DCI, the MP was conspiring to steal over 122 million from the Ministry of Information Communications and Technology. The Lugari member of parliament was arrested at an entertainment spot in Nairobi and will be held at the Muthaiga Police Station over the weekend pending his arraignment in court on Monday.
It is believed that there are three other suspects who were part of the conspiracy to steal of the government, among them being a former Principal Secretary and a Head of Department. The three are said to be on the run after it emerged that the MP was arrested.
The arrest of the MP is the latest crackdown by the government on the war against corruption especially in the public service. In August this year, media managers appealed to the Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji over, it emerged that the Government Advertising Agency (GAA) which handles all advertising from government ministries and departments in both electronic and print media, paid over 2.5 billion Kenya shillings to 99 ghost companies.
According to the media managers, the GAA which buys advertisement space on behalf of government departments and agencies, collects payments, and is supposed to pay media firms has not been remitting the funds despite services being rendered. The media firms also added that they had been forced to pay Value Added Tax (VAT) for the outstanding amounts.
To make matters worse, media firms have been forced to pay Value Added Tax (VAT) for the outstanding amounts. When GAA was set-up in 2012, it was supposed to help the government cut down on advertising expenses.
The DPP ordered investigations for the government advertising agency in August this year on the accusations that the agency obtained resources but did not pay the media firms.
“The act of government departments obtaining goods or services from Kenyans … and willfully failing to pay for them, criminally falls short of the expectations of those legal provisions.” reads an editorial from the DPP.
What action do you think should be taken against public servants involved in corruption?