Sirisia MP John Waluke freed on Ksh.10M cash bail

Sirisia Member of Parliament John Waluke has been freed on a Ksh.10 million cash bail by the Court of Appeal pending appeal on his 67-year jail term.

This comes after Waluke late last month appealed the jail term slapped on him by the High Court terming it as harsh and unwarranted.

The legislator's sentencing came in the wake of a graft case in which he was accused of defrauding the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) Ksh.313 million.

The MP was charged alongside Grace Sarapay Wakhungu, and Erad Supplies & General Contracts Limited (Erad); a company where the two are shareholders.

Waluke and Wakhungu, through the company, were supposed to supply 40,000 metric tonnes of maize to NCPB in 2004 but ended up pocketing Ksh.313 million without supplying even a single grain of maize.

The tender was however cancelled after Erad Supplies, a company in which the late businessman Jacob Juma was also a director, failed to prove it had sufficient funds to supply the maize.

The company later moved to court and sued NCPB claiming that by the time the tender was being cancelled, it already had the maize procured from Ethiopia and that it was being stored by Chelsea Freight, a South African firm, in Djibouti.

A three-judge bench composed of Judges Asike Makhandia, Sankale ole Kantai and Grace Ngenye was previously constituted to hear Waluke’s appeal.

Through his lawyer Elisha Zebedee, the MP urged the Appellate court to determine whether payment of monies made pursuant to court proceedings arising from an arbitral award and payment made pursuant to a garnishee order can sustain a criminal charge and conviction.

The MP, in court papers, also wants the judges to determine whether a director of a company in the position he was in, and for whom there is no evidence in record that he was involved in the day-to-day running of the company and was also not involved in the transactions, is criminaly culpable for a transaction that he never participated.

Part of Waluke and Grace Wakhungu's burden at the Industrial Area and Lang’ata Women’s Prison is serving part of the jail term on behalf of Erad Supplies company.

Waluke wants the Court of Appeal to rule whether the High Court and Magistrates Court had the jurisdiction to sentence him to serve the terms on behalf of the company.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) led by Alexander Muteti and Victor Awiti however asked the Appellate court to dismiss Waluke’s application to be released on bail terming it as hopeless.

"Applicant was properly convicted and sentenced and is therefore, until the impugned decision is  overturned, serving a lawful sentence emanating from a concurrent finding of the subordinate  court and the superior court," Muteti told the court.