Police arrest key suspect in Sh100m Kericho airport tender scam
Mr Jonathan Rono, the owner of Jemororan Construction Company Limited was arrested on Saturday evening.
Police have arrested the main suspect in a probe into forged documents used to secure a Sh100 million tender to upgrade the Kerenga airstrip to airport standards in Kericho County.
Mr Jonathan Rono, the owner of Jemororan Construction Company Limited was arrested on Saturday evening in Tarakonik village, Njoro, two months after an anti-corruption court in Kericho issued his arrest warrant.
The suspect will spend his third night in custody after failing to take plea on Monday due to a lack of a gazetted magistrate at the Kericho law courts. He will take plea on Tuesday morning at the Nakuru High Court.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission began probing the scandal after receiving a complaint that alleged there were procurement irregularities in the evaluation criteria for the tender awarded for the rehabilitation of the airstrip.
The complaint further alleged that the company was awarded the tender using fake documents.
Most responsive bidder
Its detectives raided the county offices in 2018 and carted away documents that established that the tender evaluation process was altered in favour of the company for being the lowest and the most responsive bidder at the tender sum of Sh97.4 million.
Four other bidders were locked out during the evaluation process which was done between April 23 and 25, 2018. The four are Twang Technologies Limited, Noventis Construction Limited, Bestland Enterprises Limited and Trowels and Shovels Limited.
EACC further established that the evaluation committee skewed the report in favour of Jemororan Construction Company Limited by indicating that they visited sites where the company had done construction works, a matter that they knew was false.
It further established that the company had forged documents to show that it had the capacity to undertake the contract.
The anti-graft body also established that the company was neither registered with the National Construction Authority (NCA) meaning the registration certificate they had attached to their bid documents was forged.
Arrest warrant
Consequently, on July 20 this year, EACC detectives arrested six suspects and charged them at the Kericho Anti-Corruption court with corruption-related offences and forgery. They were released on Sh200,000 bond each and an arrest warrant was issued against the main suspect.
The six include David Rono (director), Joash Chirchir (county engineer), Nelson Ngétich (county procurement officer), John Mibei (county surveyor), Everlyne Morogo (county accountant) and Geoffrey Komen, a government surveyor.
