EACC, DPP to blame for continued corruption in Kenya, MP Titus Lotee says

In Lotee's view, the two institutions have exhibited laxity in dealing with individuals who have been found culpable of looting public money further encouraging more public officers to continue with the vice.

He said that despite the laudable efforts by the office of the Controller of Budget and that of the Auditor General to expose the deeply rooted menace of budgeted corruption, the two prosecuting institutions have always remained mum on the matter.

"I want to say that they are sleeping because even when Parliament has found someone to be culpable and action is supposed to be taken there is nothing that is done by these people," he said during a discussion with Citizen TV on Tuesday. 

"Either the DPP will blame EACC or blame something that is not adding up for prosecution to take place."

The legislator further noted that there needs to be a sobered-up synergy between the two institutions and for once apprehend those found guilty.

"From the time we enacted our constitution, this country has not seen a major arrest on anybody who has played with our budgets."

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) has recently been accused of being politically influenced to bungle a huge graft case known as the 'Arror and Kimwarer Dam Scandal'.

This was after the main suspects in the scandal, former Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) Henry Rotich and eight others, were acquitted of fraud-related charges that cost the country Ksh.63 billion.

On February 22, 2024, the ODPP and the EACC clashed in court over an application by the DPP to withdraw an ongoing Ksh.42.7 billion corruption case at the Milimani Anti-Corruption Court in Nairobi.

The corruption case is against a former managing director of the Geothermal Development Corporation (GDC) and 7 other officials of the power-generating public company. 

Exactly a week before that, the DPP’s bid to withdraw corruption charges against the former Kenya Pipeline Managing Director (MD) Charles Kiprotich Tanui and his co-accused was dismissed by the Milimani Anti-Corruption Court. 

Late January High Court Judge Justice Prof. Nixon Sifuna made a precedent-setting ruling on what he termed ‘a laundry manner of prosecution practice taking route in Kenya’; this in reference to the rolling trend of withdrawal of cases by the DPP.

Justice Sifuna ruled that; "the prosecution cannot, in the course of the trial, suddenly make a 360 degrees turn and declare the accused innocent…"