Former NYS deputy boss moves to court to block arrest

Former National Youth Service (NYS) Deputy Director General, Adan Harakhe, has moved to court seeking to stop court proceedings against him over allegations of unprocedural procurement of training materials for automotive engineering faculty of the NYS.

In a petition filed at the Milimani Courts on Wednesday, November 16, Harakhe argued that there are plans by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko to charge him, at the behest of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) interested party in an effort to intimidate him into conceding the civil suit of a pending case.

“The intended prosecution by DPP is a witch hunt mission against the ex-parte applicant (Harakhe) as the respondent (DPP) and the interested party (EACC) seek to appease its masters,” he stated.

He noted that he would suffer public embarrassment from his prosecution adding that the charges would discredit and cause his reputation to be shunned by ‘right thinking members of the society’.

EACC reportedly filed an application at the High Court regarding the case on May 16, 2016 whose hearing is still pending in court.

Harakhe is one of the witnessed that were probed by the Public Accounts Committee over the loss of Ksh 1.6 billion at the NYS.

Appearing before the committee, Harakhe denied any links to the fraudulent transactions at the NYS insisting that his password was stolen and used to authorise the payments.

His testimony was backed by former Devolution Cabinet Secretary, Anne Waiguru, who shifted the blame to former NYS Director General, Nelson Githinji.

In her submission before PAC this month, Waiguru claimed that despite having been removed as the AIE (Authority to Incur Expenditure) holder, Githinji maintained access to the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and was able to manipulate the numbers.

Githinji has also distanced himself from the allegations in what has turned to be a back-and-forth scenario.

In a bid to dig deeper into the scandal, PAC has called for investigations into 11 banks that were allegations involved in the transactions of NYS money.