Kenya Railways Corporation accountant is in trouble for allegedly tampering with the parastatal’s payroll system.
Patrick Kareithi Ndegwa was arraigned at the Milimani Law Courts and charged with fraud for allegedly altering the system and stopping his monthly salary deductions for a period of three years.
According to the charge sheet, the suspect committed the offense between 2019 and 2021.
“You are charged that on diverse dates between July 2019 and November 2021 within Nairobi county in the Republic of Kenya, you intentionally altered the computer data in Kenya Railways Cooperation payroll system with intent to have the resultant inauthentic data to be considered as if it was authentic” the charge sheet read in part.
The institution is reported to have suffered a loss of Ksh317,000 as a result of the fraud.
Court documents show that the accused, who has worked for the corporation for 13 years, was interdicted on November 18, 2016, due to gross misconduct that left the parastatal counting Ksh1.4 million in losses. He was at the time holding the position of assistant financial accountant.
After undergoing a disciplinary process, the suspect was allowed to report but to work on November 13, 2017, but ordered to pay 50 per cent of the misappropriated funds.
The disciplinary committee indicated that the money would be deducted from his monthly salary.
“The suspect was surcharged Ksh571,991 and the monthly deductions were to be Ksh5000 until the completion of the payment,” reads court documents.
The court was told that the monthly payments were deducted until January 2020 when the suspect started interfering with the system.
Investigators claim the suspect reduced the amount he was to pay from Ksh406,000 to ksh12,500.
The suspect was arrested after investigators established that he had used his laptop to access the institution’s payroll system.
Ndegwa denied the charges before Nairobi Senior Principal Magistrate Bernard Ochoi and was freed on Ksh200,000 cash bail.