Former KRA Manager Gikonyo, Wife Granted Sh5 Million Cash Bail Each In Tax Evasion Case

Former Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Manager Joseph Chege Gikonyo and his wife Lucy Kangai have been granted Sh5 million cash bail or alternative bond of Sh10 million in tax evasion case.

The two, who were arraigned on Tuesday, denied a charge of fraudulent failure to pay taxes to the taxman.

Gikonyo was arrested on Monday, June 29, 2020, alongside his wife Lucy Kangai Stephen, with whom they are co-directors of a company named Giche Limited.

According to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission  (EACC), Gikonyo had been under investigations since 2018 over Sh600 million unexplained wealth. The EACC had obtained court orders to freeze his wealth estimated to be Sh650 million by then.

“They fraudulently failed to pay Sh38,692,694 taxes to the Kenya Revenue Authority,” authority CEO Twalib Mubarak said.

Read: Former KRA Manager Joseph Gikonyo Arrested Over Ksh600 Million Unexplained Wealth

Further reports indicate that the two accumulated assets amounting to Ksh597 million between 2010 and 2015, through Giche Limited. At that time, Gikonyo was earning Sh119,000, before he suddenly became a millionaire. When the anti-graft agency started investigating his source of wealth, KRA interdicted him on October 31, 2016.

Among the properties under his name include two plots in Nyali, Mombasa County, valued at Sh125 million, two parcels of land in Shanzu, also in Mombasa, valued at Sh26 million and a posh farmhouse in Kilifi town valued at Sh27 million.

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Gikonyo also owns a Sh40 million house in Mombasa town, land in Kwale valued at Sh2.5 million and another plot in Mtwapa valued at Sh2 million.

In Nairobi, he has 13 plots in Sosian estate valued at Sh75 million, several flats in Umoja estate valued at Sh33.5 million, a house at Greenspan estate valued at Sh12 million and a Sh9 million house in Vescon estate.

Gikonyo started as a junior employee of KRA in 1998, as a junior tax collector at Oloitokitok earning a basic salary of Sh24,369. By the time he was axed, he was a manager in Eldoret with a net pay of Sh119,617.