This Facebook post with a quote attributed to Kenya’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Noordin Haji, commenting on the Arror and Kimwarer funds case is FALSE.

The post reads in part, “the president was the one who signed Arror and Kimwarer funds from the treasury, not the deputy president. We should not politisize [sic] corruption in the name of healing Political scars!” the Facebook post adds, saying the deputy president has no authority to sign funds from the Treasury.

However, through the official Twitter account, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), has flagged the quote attributed to Haji as “fake”.

“Kindly note that this information attributed to the DPP Noordin Haji is fake,” the ODPP tweeted.

On 23 July 2019, former Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, and his deputy Kamau Thugge pleaded not guilty to corruption charges. The two were among 26 government officials who were accused of flouting procurement procedures while awarding a contract worth Ksh 63 billion for the construction of the Arror and Kimwarer dams to an Italian firm, CMC de Ravenna.

The 26 government officials were charged with 24 counts, including abuse of office, conspiracy to defraud, and misuse of public funds. In January 2021, the DPP withdrew charges against Thugge and former Tourism and Wildlife PS Susan Koech after they agreed to become state witnesses. Rotich was charged afresh on 26 May 2021, with 20 counts to which he pleaded not guilty. On 15 July 2021, the court dropped two charges against Rotich, leaving him with 18 more.

In his defence, Rotich said the Public Debt Management office at the Treasury sought legal advice from attorney general at the time, Githu Muigai, and the then solicitor general, Njee Muturi. According to Rotich, the two confirmed that the loan agreements were legally binding and in compliance with the Kenyan laws; hence the Treasury Public Debt Management Office recommended that Rotich sign the loan agreements.

PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post with a quote allegedly from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Noordin Haji, commenting on the Arror and Kimwarer funds and finds it to be FALSE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Naomi Wanjiku and edited by PesaCheck Chief Copy Editor Rose Lukalo. The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Enock Nyariki.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.