Convicted Davy Koech defends his tenure at KEMRI after court slapped him with Ksh19.6M fine

Former Kenya Medical Research Institute boss Davy Kiprotich Koech has come out to defend himself after he was convicted of fraud and slapped with Ksh19.6 m fine.

According to Koech, there was never an audit report from the Auditor General questioning his capability in his tenure spanning over two decades at the helm of KEMRI

“During my period, I built KEMRI from a mere small research facility and there was never an audit report from the auditor general questioning my person,” Koech said.

He says he left the facility at its peak performance lifting it from an operational budget of less than Ksh200 per year to more than ksh10 billion per year.

During his 22 years as the director of the research facility, Koech also claims the number of staff members grew from less than 200 to more than 3000.

He wrote this on his official social media accounts barely a day after he was convicted of fraud.

In his judgement, Magistrate Victor Wakumile found Koech guilty of transferring Ksh 19.6 million from the bank accounts of the research institute to his personal accounts.

The said amounts had been specifically set aside for research at the Centre for Disease Control in Kisumu.

The former KEMRI boss is said to have committed the offence on August 7, 2006, at KEMRI offices in Nairobi.

Koech faced three counts of abuse of office and fraudulent acquisition of public property contrary to the law.

The prosecution, through Hellen Mutela, asked the court to order Koech to pay the fine in full or risk serve a prison term.

The convict’s lawyer, Denis Maina, pleaded with the court to grant his client the liberty of paying the amount in instalments.

The magistrate overruled his plea and ordered the convict to pay the fine in two instalments of Ksh9.8M each, or risk serving a six-year jail term in default.