A court ordered City Hall officer to pay Sh198 million as costs for questionable sources of wealth.
This was a score for Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC).
In May 2023, High Court froze the assets belonging to Michael Auka Ajwang, a Nairobi County Purchasing Officer, after he failed justify the source of the unexplained wealth.
The listed assets include ten vehicles, nine parcels of land in Siaya and Kisumu counties, with one of the lands housing a high-end hotel.
Deputy Registrar of the High Court Adelaide Sisenda, ordered Ajwang pay Sh22 million as costs for a parcel of land in Siaya within 30 days from the date of judgment.
He was ordered to pay Sh176 million as costs of the high-end hotel within 12 months from the date of judgment.
In case the suspect fails to pay the amount, the court ordered 0.19 hectares of the hotel to be hived off from a parcel of land in Kisumu and the commission was granted the right to take legal action to enforce the judgment and recover the amount.
“That in default thereof, The Hydeout Riviera Hotel, measuring approximately 0.19 Ha be hived off from Parcel Number Kisumu/Reru/1453 and the Plaintiff be at liberty to execute and the decretal sum to accrue interest at 12 per cent per annum,” read part of the court ruling.
Further, the commission was given the greenlight to seize a sum of Sh799,000 seized from Ajwang.
EACC said the officer amassed the Sh537 million unexplained wealth between January 2014 and June 2022 whereas in this period of interest, the total income from his legitimately known sources was only Sh2.12 million only.
The assets frozen are nine land properties including a three-star hotel located on Kisumu-Bondo Road and 10 high-end motor vehicles.
The EACC wanted all the assets forfeited to the government for being proceeds of corruption and economic crime. Some of the assets have been traced to his wife and his associate companies.
The case started in August 2022 when EACC received a report that Ajwang’s accumulated wealth and living standards were not proportional to his known sources of income.
Investigations established that during the period of interest, Ajwang routinely received huge amounts of money in his bank accounts from several companies awarded tenders by Nairobi City County Government.
Consequently, the EACC issued a statutory notice to Ajwang requiring him to account for the disparity between his wealth and his known legitimate source of income, which he was unable to do.
The officer is currently recovering from a mild stroke that hit him after the probe started.
