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Kenya: Banks to Be Probed Over Sugar Company Graft
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
1 May 2008
Posted to the web 1 May 2008
Evelyn Kwamboka
Nairobi
The anti-graft body has obtained orders to investigate bank transactions in connection with the sale of Miwani Sugar Company's 9,000 acres of land.
Three commercial banks are to provide the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission (KACC) with records of transactions made by a private company suspected to have bought the land.
KACC moved to court on Wednesday after directors of Crossley Holdings Limited allegedly declined to volunteer any information on the sale of the sugar company's property.
Justice Hatari Waweru ordered Giro, Southern Credit and Fidelity banks to furnish KACC with information regarding application and payment of bankers' cheques within seven days.
"Southern Credit Bank's Westlands branch should release information regarding the application and payment from two bankers' cheques amounting to Sh9.7 million on January 28, 2008," he ordered.
The judge also ordered the bank to provide KACC with certified copies of original records regarding the transaction.
The orders were obtained on grounds that the property was disposed of at a gross under value, through a public auction, that was conducted pursuant to a decree issued by the Kisumu High Court.
The decree was issued in a suit that was filed by Nagendra Saxena against Miwani Sugar Mills Limited.
Information on the bank transactions is to assist KACC unravel the faces behind the company and the disposal of the public asset, KACC told the court.
KACC advocate, Mr James Olola, indicated that it was necessary for the anti-graft body to establish with "certainty how Crossley Holdings acquired the land and had it registered in its name".
Olola said investigation had established that the company had paid Sh2,706,264 land rent to the Ministry of Lands vide a bankers' cheque in January.
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It paid stamp duty for the transaction of Sh7,040,010 with another bankers' cheque drawn on the same Southern Credit Westlands branch on the same day. Transactions carried out at Giro Bank were amounting to Sh3 million and Fidelity Bank Sh5 million.
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