An auctioneer in Kakamega has been granted orders to seize property belonging to Mumias East MP Peter Salasya for failing to pay a Sh500,000 debt.
The Kakamega Small Claims Court (SCC) has asked the police to provide adequate security for the auctioneer as he moves to attach the MP’s Sports Utility Vehicle for failure to pay the debt.
Ms Caroline Cheruiyot, the Small Claims Court magistrate, granted Armok Auctioneers the right to be protected when they attach the vehicle.
A businessman, Mr Robert Lutta, obtained the orders to sell the vehicle as he seeks to recover Sh500,000 he claims he gave the MP as a loan.
On November 27, the magistrate ordered Mr Salasya to pay the businessman Sh500,000 plus interest after dismissing his counterclaim for payment of the debt as inadequate, implausible and dissuasive.
“I order that the Officer in Charge of Shianda (OCS) Police Station, or any nearest police station officer in the rank of OCS to provide adequate security to M/S Armok Auctioneers to proceed and attach the proclaimed property (Land Cruiser KDK037L),” reads the order by Ms Cheruiyot.
The auctioneers attached the high-end vehicle after conducting a search and confirming that the vehicle belonged to the MP.
A log book belonging to the vehicle was placed before the court, detailing its engine capacity (4600cc), colour (gold) and year of manufacture (2016), among other things.
“The counterclaim by the respondent (Salasya) was inconsistent. He first claimed that he had personally loaned the claimant (Lutta) Sh1 million which he (Lutta) was repaying, only to change during the hearing by saying that he loaned the money through a proxy,” reads part of the judgment.
“The proxy in question, one Mr Bernard Kemba, could in turn not even identify the claimant (Lutta) even after an identification parade was carried out in court.”
The court noted that while the businessman had a bank transfer to support his claim that he loaned Salasya the Sh500,000 that he refused to pay, the latter had no binding evidence to show that he loaned Lutta the alleged Sh1 million.
Mr Lutta, through lawyer Edwin Wafula, sued the MP on October 23 last year, claiming that he innocently loaned Salasya the amount in the hope that he would repay it in two months’ time, but has since failed to do so.
“Being a friend for so many years I accepted to advance him the amount on December 13 last year (2022),” he says in his court papers.
“On the material day I proceeded to the Kenya Commercial Bank -Mumias Branch where I made a direct transfer of the Sh500, 000 to the personal account of the MP who promised to refund the amount within a period of two months from the date of the transaction.”
Lutta regretted that the MP failed, refused, neglected and ignored to refund the amount despite several reminders.