A County Architect in Uasin Gishu told an Eldoret court that the construction of Langas market under the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP) was poorly implemented by the contractor forcing him to abandon supervision.
The Architect that served as the Acting Chief Engineer at Eldoret Municipality Jones Lutta Chitechi testified in court, Monday during the hearing of a case in which Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) took sued four suspects including two directors of a private company.
They allegedly engaged in a corruption scandal involving Sh28 million.
The architect said he only approved the first phase of the construction but refused to approve subsequent valuations because the work was 'substandard'.
The charged include Nicholas Ng’eno that was the Kericho County Executive Committee (CeC) member in charge of Lands, Housing and Physical Planning and was sacked after the case commenced. He was a senior architect in the defunct Eldoret Municipality.
He was accused of colluding with Jackson Mutua, the KENSUP Project Manager and a Director at the Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban, Fredrick Ojwang and Ruth Otanga who are the Directors of FOMCO International Limited to swindle part of the Sh79.9 million set aside for the project.
The four faced seven charges of abuse of office and conferring benefits in awarding and receiving a contract to develop the market project on different dates between November 28, 2012 and April 30, 2013.
“I was the supervisor of the project and did the first valuation of Sh3.8 million which I sent to the Ministry for payment, I refused to do the following valuation because the job done failed to meet the agreed standards but I was surprised that somebody in the ministry did three other valuations of Sh9.2 million, Sh12.9 million and Sh22.9 million when I was still in charge," he told Chief Magistrate Charles Obulutsa.