Chris Chepkoit Kisire on Tuesday denied the fraud, abuse of office and breach of trust charges before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi.
Mr Kisire is said to have committed the offences when he awarded a contract to supply furniture to a company known as Sygoin International Holding Limited without following procurement procedures of his former employer.
He is accused of using his position as the chief finance officer to arbitrarily effect payments of the monies to the said company without following procurement policy.
Former National Bank of Kenya #ticker:NBK chief finance officer Chris Chepkoit Kisire has been charged with defrauding the lender over Sh77 million.
Mr Kisire on Tuesday denied the fraud, abuse of office and breach of trust charges before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi.
He is said to have committed the offences when he awarded a contract to supply furniture to a company known as Sygoin International Holding Limited without following procurement procedures of his former employer.
“Between July 7, 2014 and April 17, 2015, at the headquarters of NBK, the accused, jointly with others not before this court, conspired together to defraud,” the prosecution said.
He is accused of using his position as the chief finance officer to arbitrarily effect payments of the monies to the said company without following procurement policy.
Mr Kisire is also accused of acting in abuse of authority and not in the best interest of his former employer.
Another NBK employee, Mr Wyclife Lindonga Kivunira, was also charged in the same court with conspiring to defraud the bank Sh7.8 million while he was the acting chief finance officer at the bank.
Mr Kivunira is accused of fraudulently taking over a proof of concept for the core banking system upgrade contract validly awarded to MISYS and re-awarding it to another firm known as Digitronics Solutions limited.
He also faced two more charges of abuse of office and breach of trust, just like Mr Kisire. He was arrested on Monday.
According to the prosecution, an inquiry into allegations of a series of malpractices at the bank forced its board of directors to terminate contracts of the top management team.
The other top officers at the bank affected included former managing director Ahmed Munir Sheikh, corporate institutional and banking director Boniface Biko, head of credit George Jaba and ICT director Mohammed Abdalla.
The prosecution of the two comes after an inquiry on procurement of goods and services for a period spanning from 2014 to last year.
Court documents reveal that Sygoin International was registered on May 5, 2015 with its directors as Mr Alexander Madiga Mwanga and Mr Dickson Amboko.
The company was introduced to the bank by Mr Kisire on August 6, 2014 while seeking approval to be included among its listed pre-qualified vendors. The letter of introduction was supposed to originate from the procurement unit, but it did not.
The company did not make it to the list either. Its details including its PIN certificate, bank accounts, previous performance records and captured user-profile were missing at the procurement unit.
However the company was awarded the contract without participating in the procurement process and was allegedly to have imported from China branded furniture through an agent.
Both former managers denied the charges and were freed on a cash bail of Sh1 million each.
Their trial kicks off on July 13.
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