{"id":100513,"date":"2024-10-28T21:30:50","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T21:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/10\/28\/jailing-of-finance-executive-chief-officer-to-plunge-county-into-chaos-kisumu-tells-court\/"},"modified":"2024-10-28T21:30:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T21:30:50","slug":"jailing-of-finance-executive-chief-officer-to-plunge-county-into-chaos-kisumu-tells-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/jailing-of-finance-executive-chief-officer-to-plunge-county-into-chaos-kisumu-tells-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Jailing of Finance Executive, Chief Officer to plunge county into chaos: Kisumu tells court"},"content":{"rendered":"

KISUMU, Kenya, Oct 28 \u2014 Kisumu County now wants the court to review a contempt conviction against its two top Treasury officials citing a looming crisis that could paralyse its operations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The county made the appeal while appearing before Justice Rashid Mwanaisha on Monday whene defense lawyers sougt to have a five-month jail sentense on Chief Finanace Officer Martin Okede.<\/p>\n

The lawyers argued that Okede\u2019s jailing and the impending conviction of County Executive Member for Finance George Okong\u2019o on a similar offense will stall the County Treasury.<\/p>\n

Okede is serving his term at Kodiaga Maximum Prison following sentensing. The court also fined him Sh200,000.<\/p>\n

Okong\u2019o, temporarily jailed in April 2023 over contempt, was to appear alongside the CFO but skipped the court session.<\/p>\n

The court cited the two for contempt over failure by the county to pay Majok Construction Company a pending bill amounting to Sh16 million.<\/p>\n

Okong\u2019o\u2019s counsel told the court that already the county had entered into an agreement with the respondent on how to pay the amount.<\/p>\n

Already, he said, the county has paid a total of Sh8 million and agreed on how to settle the remaining amount.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am appealing to the court to suspend the conviction of Mr Okong\u2019o bearing in mind the progress we have made with the respondent,\u201d Okong\u2019o\u2019s advocate said.<\/p>\n

Fiscal constraints <\/h2>\n

He told the court that his client did not disobey the court orders but was attending to another court case in Nairobi, thus the failure to appear for sentencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccept the explanation and excuse the non-attendance, it was not out of disrespect of the court,\u201d the advocate told Justice Mwanaisha.<\/p>\n

Okong\u2019o\u2019s advocate asked the court to review Okode\u2019s conviction.<\/p>\n

The county argued that being responsible for preparation of vouchers and other documents to allow for the release of funds, Okode\u2019s release is key for the running of the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalaries will not be paid on time and no government project will run if the two officials are jailed,\u201d the defense said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is again my plea to have the CFO released since arrangements have been made to clear the debt,\u201d the advocate pleaded.<\/p>\n

Robert Maua, the lawyer representing the respondent, asked the court to defer the conviction ruling until November 11 since the county pledged to wire an agreed amount by November 8.<\/p>\n

The county explained that the non-payment of pending bills was not of its making but a situation triggered by factors beyond its control including delayed disbursements of funds by the National Treasury and dwindling own-source revenues.<\/p>\n

Justice Mwanaisha will render a ruling on the matter on Tuesday.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KISUMU, Kenya, Oct 28 \u2014 Kisumu County now wants the court to review a contempt conviction against its two top Treasury officials citing a looming crisis that could paralyse its operations. The county made the appeal while appearing before Justice Rashid Mwanaisha on Monday whene defense lawyers sougt to have a five-month jail sentense on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}