The law prohibits the giving, offering, receiving or soliciting bribes to influence or reward the appointment of a person as a trustee.
A trustee is a person appointed to take care of someone’s property for the benefit of a third party over a given period of time. The third party is usually referred to as the “Beneficiary”.
In most cases, the trustee has no personal interest in the property. Trustees include persons appointed in wills as executors of properties of deceased individuals, or persons appointed by courts as administrators or supervisors of properties belonging to people who are deceased.
Law text: ACECA Sec. 43
Illustration of an improper Benefit for a Trustee
Ian is a manager of one of the banks in the city. The bank loaned Yote Ya Wezekana Factory KShs.700,000 five years ago. Yote ya Wezekana Factory used its assets as security for the loan and was to repay the loan in installments.
The bank and the factory agreed that the bank would have the right to appoint a receiver manager should the factory experience difficulties in repaying the loan. The work of the receiver manager would be to supervise the operations of the factory until the factory paid the loan in full.
In recent months, the factory has been unable to pay its loan installments, and the bank is now considering appointing a receiver manager to run the affairs of Yote ya Wezekana Factory.
Kinio approaches Ian and requests him to recommend him to the Board of Directors of the bank as the receiver manager for the factory. He promises Ian a ‘substantial reward’ for his assistance. Ian agrees, and following his recommendation, Kinio is appointed as the bank’s receiver manager for Yote Ya Wezekana Factory. The bank’s Board of Directors is however not informed of the ‘substantial reward’ that was promised to Ian by Kinio.
Kinio and Ian thus commit the offence of improper benefits to trustees for appointment.
Mzee Wamafua, a wealthy man in town, dies without a will. The court thereafter appoints the Office of the Public Trustee as an administrator of Mzee Wamafua’s property. Muriat, a lawyer working in the Office of the Public Trustee, approaches his boss with a request to supervise the distribution of Mzee Wamafua’s properties. He gives his boss several thousand shillings to influence the decision in his favour. Again, Muriat and his boss commit the offence of improper benefits to trustees for appointment.
Source: EACC
