The ODPP, through their verified Twitter account, has flagged the letter as fake.
Syndicated Story By PesaCheck.
A letter purportedly signed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Haji, inviting Deputy President William Ruto to testify in the Arror and Kimwarer dams case is FAKE.
The letter dated 21 October 2021 informs Ruto that he has been listed as a prosecution witness because of his past public remarks.
“It is on public record that on the 28 February 2019 you refuted claims that Ksh 21 billion had been lost in the multi-purpose dam projects in the Elgeyo-Marakwet and instead indicated that “only Ksh 7 billion was lost”,” a section of the letter reads.
The letter adds that Ruto said the government had a bank guarantee to secure the payments made to contractors.
“Your insights, therefore, on this matter will be vital in prosecuting the case and recovering lost public funds,” it adds.
The exact date when the DP will appear in court physically, it adds, will be communicated.
However, in a tweet on 22 October 2021, the ODPP termed the letter a fake.
“The above letter circulating on social media is fake. We wish to state that no such letter has been written in relation to the Arror and Kimwarer case,” the ODPP wrote on their verified Twitter account.
In July 2019, former Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Henry Rotich, and his Permanent Secretary Kamau Thugge were charged alongside 24 other government officials.
They were charged with conspiring to defraud the government of $501,829,769 by getting into a deal to construct Arror and Kimwarer dams without approval. In January 2019, Haji dropped charges against Thugge and his Tourism and Wildlife counterpart Susan Koech after they agreed to become state witnesses.
Over time, the number of those accused has reduced to nine individuals, including Rotich, former chief economist Kennedy Nyakundi, former Kerio Valley Development Authority boss David Kimosop and former National Environment Management Authority managing director Geoffrey Wakungu. Others include Jackson Kinyanjui, William Kipkemboi, Paul Kipkoech, Francis Chepkonga and Titus Muriithi. The case was mentioned on 26 October 2021.
PesaCheck has looked into a letter purportedly signed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Noordin Haji, inviting Deputy President William Ruto to testify as a prosecution witness in the Arror and Kimwarer dams case and finds it to be FAKE.
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.