A small officer at the National Youth Service is living large with wealth valued at more than Sh500 million despite earning a peanut salary of Sh26,000 a month.
Evans Wafula Kundu was in charge of mechanical and transport department when he illegally accumulated the wealth during the looting spree at NYS when Sh. 9 billion was lost through dubious contracts and fictitious payments.
Between 2013 and 2017, Kundu was earning a net monthly salary of between Sh9,564 and Sh26,300 but deposited cash totaling Sh197,391,968 in his acount.
Kundu also managed to acquire property valued at Sh350 million. His flashy lifestyle with the modest salary was laid bare by the Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) as it sought to freeze movement of the property.
On friday ARA through lawyer Jennifer Gitiri obtained orders stopping the suspect, his wife Sylvia Onguru, daughter MillicentKundu and their company Mojisola Limited from selling, interfering with or transferring any of the property.
Justice Mumbi Ngugi in her ruling granted a preservation order against the respondents, their employees, agents or any other person acting on their behalf from dealing in any manner with the listed property and parcels of land pending determination of the suit.
The no nonsense judge further ordered the chief lands registrar to put a caveat on all land owned by Kundu and the director general of National Transport and Safety Authority to register a caveat on a fleet of vehicles.
ARA is seeking to have Kundu’s property and cash in his bank accounts forfeited to the state on claims that they were obtained through proceeds of crime and syphoningof public funds from NYS, a state agency.
Kundu was among other 37 suspects charged in May 2018 with a conspiracy to defraud NYS of millions of shillings. His was accused together with the former Youth and Gender Affairs Principal Secretary Lillian Omollo, former NYS Director General Richard Ndubai and NYS Deputy Director General Nicholas Ahere.
In affidavit filed in court by ARA investigator Fredrick Musyoki, It is well detailed how Kundu was involved in money laundering schemes using NYS suppliers who also turned up to be his co-accused in the anti-corruption case to buy property on his behalf to conceal his sources of illicit cash.
It is alleged that Kundu also used the names of his wife and daughter to acquire property. He also colluded with his two brothers to register companies that were later awarded NYS tenders and paid Sh17 million without supplying anything.
