Information Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru has appointed Jared Peter Odoyo Kwaga — one of the key suspects in a Sh2 billion graft probe targeting Migori Governor Okoth Obado — to the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication (KIMC) board.
In a February 8 gazette notice, Mr Mucheru listed Mr Kwaga alongside former Bonchari MP Zebedeo John Opore, KBC chairman Edward Musebe, former NGO Coordination Board member Dee Kivuva Mutisya, former newscaster Beatrice Marshall and former National Quality Control Laboratory Board member Kagiri Kamatu.
The seven started a three-year term on Friday, and will serve until February 7, 2022.
The KIMC is a semi-autonomous government agency that trains students in electronic and telecommunication engineering, film production, radio and television production, print and broadcast journalism, electronic and studio technology.
Mr Kwaga was among many individuals in a list of appointments by President Uhuru Kenyatta and several ministers the Gazette notice of February 8.
The KIMC is a semi-autonomous government agency that trains students in electronic and telecommunication engineering, film production, radio and television production, print and broadcast journalism, electronic and studio technology.
The Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission has being pursuing a trail of transactions involving an intricate web of suspected proxy companies through which beleaguered Migori governor Okoth Obado is believed to have siphoned billions of county funds to local and offshore accounts.
According to EACC documents filed in court, Obado and his associates registered about 30 companies soon after he became governor through which they have pocketed Sh2.5 billion in “fictitious” contracts.
Kwaga, investigations reveal, also made huge international transfers to, among others, Obado’s children in Australia, Hong Kong and China, as the Star reported exclusively on Saturday.
According to the documents, Kwaga’s companies have been paid Sh1.6 billion since 2013.
“These funds have been used to to acquire and construct properties worth over Sh1 billion registered in the governor’s and Kwaga’s names. We have traced these properties,” EACC said in court papers.
EACC which has been tracking the dealings long before Sharon’s murder saga, discretely obtained court order for a six-months’ freeze of six bank accounts and preservation of 37 parcels of land on December 1, 2017.
The preservation order was again extended on June 21, 2018, for a further four months.
Of these properties mostly situated in Migori county, 22 are registered in Kwaga’s name.