Fugitive Trans Nzoia speaker charged with graft

Trans-Nzoia County Speaker David Kinisu Sifuna on Wednesday surrendered to the Eldoret law Courts to answer graft charges against him and 38 Members of the County Assembly.

This is after an Eldoret court issued a warrant of arrest against him and 16 MCAs who had escaped arrest by EACC officers on Monday after their colleagues were arraigned and charged with abuse of office.

The other 22 MCAs and their clerk were charged and released on bond waiting to appear before the court on March 15^th, 2017.

The 38 MCAs, the speaker, and the clerk were accused of taking Kshs47,000 each in fraudulently in 2014 purporting to travel to Nairobi to pick a body of their colleague that had been picked five days earlier.

Appearing before the Eldoret Resident Magistrate, Speaker Harisson Baraza, through his lawyer, told the court that he learned of the warrant of arrest through the press.

He denied the charges and was released on a bond of Ksh200,000 with a surety of the same amount or cash bail of Ksh150, 000.

The case is scheduled will be heard on March 11, 2017.

Fourteen MCAs were arrested Wednesday morning and locked up at the EACC offices waiting to be arraigned in court on Thursday.

Edited by Ronald Kibet