EACC Arrests Vihiga County Chief Officer, Recovers Sh400K Unexplainable Cash In Her Office

As part of the ongoing corruption investigations in Vihiga County Government, EACC on Thursday arrested one Dr. Noel Malanda, the County Chief Officer for Education for suspected extortion, kickbacks and other forms of corrupt conduct. She is believed to be running a graft scheme in her docket where she demands hefty kickbacks before any contract award and further before any payments are made for completed works.

In this particular case, the suspect demanded Kes. 200,000 from a trader who had supplied ECD Certificates as a condition for approving his payment of Kes. 1.8 Million. During the arrest, the Commission recovered Kes. 400,000 in her office believed to be part of the money extorted from contractors. The suspect was unable to account for the seized funds.

She was booked at Kisumu Port Police Station pending investigative sessions at EACC Kisumu Regional Offices on Friday.

It is emerging that this Chief Officer, who has reportedly been in office for less than a year, has been verbally instructing contractors to commence works and deliver services without signed contracts, even in cases where the contractors have been procured procedurally. Upon completion of the works and supply of the services, she would demand bribes to issue contracts which would form part of the payment documents. Failure to give the bribes would see the payment delayed indefinitely.