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MP Ayub Savula to spend his weekend in police cell


Lugari Member of Parliament Ayub Savula will spend the weekend in police cells after he was arrested on Friday evening in Nairobi over conspiracy to steal Sh122,335,500 from the Ministry of Information Communication and Technology.

Mr Savula was arrested at an entertainment spot in Nairobi and is being held at the Muthaiga Police Station.

The MP becomes that latest high-profile personalities to be arrested over fraud.

In a tweet posted on Friday night, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) revealed that Savula will be charged in court on Monday.

His arrest comes at a time when the government is investigating the loss of Sh2.5 billion at the State advertising agency.

There are also reports that the government lost the monies in falsified payments to phony companies.

FALSIFIED PAYMENTS

DCI officials say the Sh2.5 billion was paid to 101 fictitious companies, most of which were registered in names close to those of media houses.

In a statement from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), stated that the DCI targets more than 20 suspects, among them current and former GAA staff, in the scandal that cuts across a number of ministries.

The Government Advertising Agency was established in July 2015 to handle advertisements from all State ministries and departments.

The agency was created in 2015 to handle all government advertisements in electronic and print media. It publishes My Gov, a weekly insert and distributed in the dailies.

GHOST COMPANIES

Mr Haji gave the directive to investigate GAA following editorial published in the Nation on August 7, 2018 criticising the institutions for obtaining resources and not paying for them.

Although government parastatals and departments remit money to the agency, it has not been paying the media houses their dues. Instead, the Sh2.8 billion has been paid to 99 ghost companies, the DCI probe unearthed.