Lead image for How Prosecutorial Hesitation Has Derailed Kenya's Major Corruption Cases.
Kenya's anti-graft agency says it has forwarded high-value corruption investigations to state prosecutors but a growing share of the cases remains in limbo, reinforcing the slow pace at which the country's biggest economic crimes are advancing through the justice system.
- The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) said it submitted 43 investigation files to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) during the quarter ended June, with 38 carrying recommendations for criminal charges involving alleged embezzlement, procurement fraud, money laundering, conflict of interest, and bribery.
- Yet by the end of the reporting period, more than half of those files, 21 cases, were still awaiting the ODPP's decision, while another 10 had already been returned to investigators for further inquiries.
- The tension is not new as EACC's leadership has told lawmakers before that the ODPP has repeatedly withdrawn corruption cases, most of them involving senior state officials or county governors, without consulting the agency that built them.
Between March and June 2026, the ODPP accepted recommendations to prosecute in only four cases, according to the commission's statutory report.
The backlog leaves several of the country's largest alleged corruption schemes without prosecutorial direction months after investigations were completed including an alleged KSh1.57 billion fraud involving the National Treasury's Programme for Rural Outreach of Financial Innovations and Technologies (PROFIT).
EACC investigators allege that Treasury officials diverted billions intended for a rural financial inclusion programme by channeling Treasury disbursements into a fraudulently opened bank account before the money was withdrawn in cash or transferred to 23 companies. The commission recommended charges against Treasury officials and company proprietors on 30 April, but said it was still awaiting the DPP's response at the close of the quarter.
A separate unresolved file involves a KSh345.9 million contract for construction of Isiolo Stadium, of which KSh256 million has already been paid despite the project remaining incomplete and key procurement records missing. EACC's recommendation there was narrower than in most files, calling for a systems audit at the county alongside charges against two officials for failing to safeguard procurement documents.
In another pending matter, EACC recommended charges against a sitting Member of Parliament, Kitutu Chache North Constituency MP Japheth Mokaya (UDA), over allegations that nearly KSh40 million was transferred to him from a supplier that received a KSh57 million tender from the Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology (RVIST). Investigators also recommended charges against the college officials and company directors, but the file remains under consideration by prosecutors.