Five people suspected to have been involved in the theft of millions of shillings at Maasai Mara University were arraigned in Nakuru on Wednesday.
Vice Chancellor Mary Walingo was ferried from Nairobi in the morning alongside three other officials at the campus to Nakuru Central Police Station where the court process was taking place.
The others are deputy VC Administration, acting deputy VC student affairs Simon Kasaine Ole Seno, finance officer John Almadi Obere, Anaclet Biket Okumu and the VC’s rriver Noor Hassan Abdi.
The five were separately charged with 10 counts ranging from misappropriation of public funds, abuse of office, failure to comply with public finance regulations and stealing by public servant.
Walingo was in seven of the 10 charges.
In the first count, all the five were charged that between January 24, 2016, and July 19, 2019, at Maasai Mara University Narok county, they conspired to misappropriate university funds amounting to Sh177 million.
Walingo and Seno were together charged of failing to comply with the applicable law and procedures of managing public funds by unlawfully authorising expenditure of Sh70,569,007 without supporting documents.
Walingo was separately accused of arbitrarily directing the unlawful expenditure of Sh176.1 million from different bank accounts.
She also solely faced another count of failing to comply with the laws and procedures relating to the management of public funds by unlawfully authorising the expenditure of Sh176.1 million without supporting documents.
All the offences were committed between June 2016 and December 2019.
The suspects who virtually appeared before Nakuru Chief Magistrate Elizabeth Usui denied the charges.
In their application for lenient and reasonable bail and bond terms, defence lawyers led by Peter Omingo asked the court to admit the suspects to bonds of between Sh100,000 and Sh300,000.
He said the suspects were senior citizens who have been serving in the public sector for decades.
“My client is not a flight risk and she has been appearing before the investigators whenever summoned,” he said.
She said setting an exorbitant bond or cash bail was equivalent to jailing a suspect at the pre-trial stage.
State counsel Daniel Karuri said while as the prosecution was not opposing bond, the court should consider the nature of the offence committed, the kind of sentence if found guilty and the amount of public money involved.
Karuri said the bond mentioned by the defence lawyers was too low considering that, if found guilty, they would be required to pay a penalty of double the amount in the charge.
He also appealed to the court to bar the suspects from accessing the university because 27 witnesses in the matter were staff under them, adding that chances of intimidation were high.
Magistrate Osui declined the prayer for the accused persons to be denied access to the university.
She released the five on Sh20 million bond each with surety of similar amount or an alternative bail of Sh10 million each.
The case will be heard on September 11.
This comes two days after the Director of Public Prosecution, Noordin Hajji ordered their arrest and prosecution.