Former Kebs boss Charles Ongwae charged with fraud

Former Kenya Bureau of Standards chief executive Charles Ongwae was on Wednesday charged with abuse of office and conspiracy to deny the government tax revenue.

Mr Ongwae was charged alongside 14 others with 31 counts over alleged tax evasion scheme that lost the government Sh64 million in revenue.

RELEASE

Among the charges Mr Ongwae faced are abuse of office and conspiracy to defraud the government by “unlawfully authorising the waiver of penalty for import goods arriving into the country without certificate of conformity from the country of origin from 15 percent of the total custom value to 0.5 percent.”

Mr Ongwae was arraigned before Nairobi’s Senior Principal Magistrate Kennedy Cheruiyot who released him on a Sh500,000 bond after he denied the charges.

The court ordered him to appear before the investigating officer at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations on January 7, 2019 to record a statement.

The prosecution claims two importers — Gendipe Enterprises and Rupai Trading Ltd and their clearing agent Landmark Freight Services Ltd — concealed imported goods with the aim of evading taxes and reducing amount of penalties payable for goods arriving without certificate of conformity from the country of origin

The case will be mentioned on January 23.