Raymond Omollo, Managing Director Lake Basin Development Authority since February 2019
If the Lake Basin Development Authority Director Raymond Omollo is still walking with his head high after orchestrating the looting of Sh200 million; it only means that EACC has been compromised.
And indeed it has according to a source who asked to remain anonymous.
In mid 2020, it emerged that Mr Omollo and his legal department hatched a plan and allegedly stole the money that was meant to pay former staff of the agency who had been retrenched some 20 years ago.
It all began after President Uhuru Kenyatta directed that all state agencies should clear their pending bills.
Mr Omollo, Mr Clifford Otieno, Michael Okuk and a HR guy immediately set works in motion, came up with over 100 names of those who had been retrenched and were seeking justice through the slow and painful court system in Kenya.
They communicated to some of them to accept an out of court settlement, paid them monies and all seemed well to that point.
However, it later emerged that some of the retrenches had not received their share of the ‘out of court settlement’. Some due to lack of knowledge of the new development, others had died.
The trio had pocketed huge chunks of the money and to make matters worse, those who were paid are said to have received between Sh50,000 and Sh200,000 from the pool of the Sh200 million that Mr Omollo and company had charged LBDA.
Honest man
Nonetheless, that was not the only crux, one man had stood in the way of this scandalous scheme.
A Mr Obiero who worked in the legal department had been approached about the scheme, but he refused to partake in it.
He was unceremoniously demoted and hounded out of office for his honesty.
Cabinet Secretary East African Community & Regional Development, Hon Adan Mohamed & Lake Basin Development Authority Managing Director, Raymond Omollo before the senate committee on the Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations in 2019.
The scandal got bigger as most of those retrenched who had not received their compensation got wind of it.
They filed a suit in court, saying they were not party to the deal and that they never instructed their lawyer, Owala Advocates, to agree on an out of court settlement.
They also wrote to the EACC and DCI about the crime, but since May 2020, the investigations seems to have stalled.
Cover up
The first cover up that Mr Omollo and the other LBDA managers did was t threaten those that had been paid between Sh50,000 and Sh200,000 not to raise any troubles.
Apart from compromising the employee lawyer, they also bribed one of the retrenched staff, a Mr Samuel Opondo to sign off on behalf of the other 107.
LBDA was represented by Olel Onyango and Ingutia Advocates and the employees filed a mutual consent in the Labour Court in Kisumu before Justice Mathews Nderi, who allowed an out of court settlement.
In the scandal that have ravaged the agency, including the LBDA Mall construction, money was flowing. It is from all these that the investigating officer from EACC are said to have dipped their fingers to remain silent over the matter.
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