Former NHIF bosses acquitted in Sh96m fraud case

A Nairobi court has acquitted former National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) boss, Richard Lang’at Kerich, and two former directors who had been charged with abuse of office and defrauding NHIF Ksh96 million.

Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate, Martha Mutuku, ruled that the prosecution failed to prove the case against the three beyond reasonable doubt.

“There’s no evidence provided in court to show that NHIF lost money in the said contract between NHIF and Clinix,”said Mutuku.

In her judgment, the court noted that the prosecution did not tender evidence to show that the accused persons abused their offices while signing the said tender documents to Clinix Healthcare.

The court ruled that the accused had no role in awarding the tender.

“I acquit them under section 215 of the CPC, ” ruled the magistrate.

The court faulted the prosecution for not calling any NHIF officer to testify before the court and explain the role the accused persons played in the scandal as top NHIF officials.

According to the court this would have helped the court to know the role they played and if those roles amounted to abuse of office.

Court had found that the three Richard Kerich, Marwa Fadhili and David Kipruto Chingi had a case to answer and put them on their defense.

Kerich was accused that on diverse dates between 1st day of July  and the 13th of March , 2013 at NHIF Building in Nairobi  conspired to defraud NHIF  Ksh96,565,125 by causing the health insurance fund to enter into contract with Clinix Healthcare Limited for the provisions of primary health care and treatment services under the civil servants and disciplined service medical scheme outside Nairobi while knowing Clinix had not.

Mid this year the trial court set free Clinix Healthcare chief executive officer, Toddy Madhahana, and Clinix director, Anthony Kalathir.

Kerich and two others denied any wrong doing in the matter.

The prosecution called a total of 28 witnesses who testified against the six accused persons.