Staff at Deputy President (DP) William Ruto are set to hold a crisis meeting at his Karen Official residence in the wake of the damning fake arms dealing involving his ally Rashid Echesa.
DP Ruto issued the summon on Tuesday to the staff based at the Harambee House Annex where the former Sports Cabinet Secretary held a meeting with the foreign investors targeted in the fake Sh39 billion tender.
Details of the meeting’s agenda have not yet been revealed to the media but the move came after police officers grilled junior staff at Harambee House Annex for the second day.
Detectives took away CCTV footage of the alleged meeting between Mr. Echesa and the foreigners he brought to Ruto’s office boardroom.
“We have been told to report to Karen tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. The boss (DP) wants to meet the staff over the issue,” a source told the People Daily.
Meanwhile, investigators from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) revealed that seven senior staff at Harambee House Annex will be summoned for questioning over the meetings in which the foreigners were swindled Sh11 million in facilitation fees.
On Tuesday, investigations took a new twist with revelations that the suspects had had another meeting at Ruto’s office on January 20.
The second meeting is said to have taken place three weeks before the arrest last week.
As the scope of the investigations widened, DCI’s Cyber Crime Unit visited Harambee House Annex to get more CCTV footage for the period before and after Mr. Echesa and two foreigners visited the building.
Sources said the earlier footage retrieved only showed the period the three men went into the building at 9.39 am and left at 11.02 am on Thursday last week.
Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) officials on Tuesday analysed two police radio sets seized from Mr. Echesa on the day he was arrested to establish the channels he could access.
Investigators said Mr. Echesa in his statement had said the radios belonged to his security firm.
“The radios could have been used by the fraudsters who would pose as security officers of the supposed senior government officials when they were meeting the foreigners,” a source at the DCI headquarters said.
Mr. Echesa, Mr. Daniel Otieno, Mr. Clifford Okoth and Mr. Kennedy Oyoo Mboya were on Monday charged with 12 counts relating to fraud.
The charges ranged from conspiracy to commit a felony to attempt to obtain Sh39.5 billion from a foreign businessman by pretending they would award him a tender to supply military equipment.
They were freed on Sh1 million cash bail each.
The group was arrested as they left Harambee House Annex in Nairobi which houses the office of the Deputy President.
On Tuesday, sources told the People Daily that to corroborate some of the statements already recorded from suspects, telephone numbers of most of the key players have been obtained and detectives were conducting phone triangulation to establish where the group may have converged.
“We will also obtain CCTV footage based on the details of the location and the date given by the mobile service providers,” a senior detective said.
