A court on Wednesday charged seven men for impersonating Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and swindling a prominent businessman out of 10 million shillings (US$100,000) in yet another high-profile corruption case.
The suspects called tire firm Sameer Africa boss Naushad Merali and his finance director, Akif Butt, pretending to be the president and asking to sell them land, court documents showed.
The seven pleaded not guilty at a Nairobi court and were released on bail before their case resumes on March 12.
One of the suspected fraudsters impersonated Kenyatta’s voice, while the others arrived in fancy vehicles and suits to collect the money, police said.
“Merali ... gave a go-ahead to the finance director to process payment believing he spoke to the head of state,” the documents read.
The Star newspaper said Joseph Waswa, the man accused of imitating Kenyatta, was known to use luxury vehicles, helicopters and bodyguards.
Although the case is entertaining, it also showed how pervasive corruption is in East Africa’s richest economy, prominent anti-graft campaigner John Githongo said.
“It is so completely normal to be shaken down ... that he didn’t even bother to check up before sending the money,” he said. “For that to happen, especially right now when we are ostensibly in the middle of an anti-corruption campaign, shows that much of it is window dressing.”
Kenyatta’s government has come in for repeated criticism over corruption scandals in the health and construction sectors, and the National Youth Service.
Dozens of senior officials and businesspeople were charged in May last year with various crimes related to the theft of nearly US$100 million from the National Youth Service, a state agency.
The Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations on Monday said that it was also investigating what it said was fraudulent construction of two dams valued at 63 billion shillings.
Some payments had already already made, despite the dams not being built, it said.
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