A Kisumu based advocate has been accused by her clients based in South Africa of conning them money and giving them bouncing date.
The advocate, Margaret Aloo Ochanji-Opondo, who was representing the South Africa based women group, Nyinam Investment Group, took Ksh 4.952million from the group but did not submit the payment in time for the purchase of the property intended.
Margaret was then asked to refund the payment but fearing being exposed, she went to court demanding that the court rule that the group should have paid her a total of over one million shillings as costs to the purchase. It is not clear why someone should pay transaction costs of one million shillings for a Ksh 4.952million property.
Court is yet to conclude the matter as the civil cases drag for ages. Nyinam’s lawyer, Okong’o Omogeni, has been forced to travel to Kisumu several times without much success in getting the issue sorted.
The case of another rogue Kisumu lawyer as highlighted on NTV.
Margaret has avoided meeting the women even when they organised a trip from South Africa and came specifically to meet her. The group composed of women from Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa, have gone to court to recover their money but it seems that lawyers in Kenya fear exposing their corrupt colleagues fearing that the same colleagues might expose them.
Documents in our possession indicate that Margaret received the payments as indicated but neither the Law Society of Kenya nor the Advocates Complaint’s Commission at the State Law Office is taking any serious action to address the problem.
Of the close to five million shillings paid to Margaret, she forwarded only one million shillings to the seller who has been making regular refunds after the deal failed to go through.
The ladies now want the crooked advocates in Kisumu exposed as they are sabotaging the investments of clients who are not available in the country. Margaret has frustrated the women that they are now looking for ways of recovering the money without delay.
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