An anti-corruption court is to issue directions today in a case where four people face fraud charges in the Sh209 million fertilizer scandal.

The case is listed before Milani magistrate Celesa Okore.

The accused persons were charged in May this year and released on various conditions after denying the charges.

The first to be charged was NCPB CEO Joseph Kimote. He is out on a Sh1 million cash bail.

The charge sheet presented in court alleged that Kimote and his co-accused conspired to defraud Kenyan farmers by selling a total of 139,688 bags of 25 kilograms each of soil amendment and conditioner valued at Sh209.5 million.

It is alleged that they presented the fertilizer as genuine.

The crime must have been committed between 17 March 2022 and 8 March 2024 at an unknown location in the country.

Mr Kimote was separately charged with malfeasance where he has wrongly conferred a benefit on Josiah Kariuki Kimani by executing an urgent contract between NCPB and Fifty One Capital, African Diatomite Industries Limited.

This would purportedly deliver 139,688 bags of 25 kg each of soil improver and conditioner labeled as fertilizer within NCPB depots across the country.

Kariuki is a director of SBL Innovate Manufacturers implicated in the scandal.

He has been accused of packaging soil and distributing it as organic fertilizer to farmers in the Rift Valley region.

It is also alleged that he packed soil into 139,688 bags, each weighing 25kg, and harvested Sh209,532,000. He was released on a bond of 5 million.

He is standing trial alongside Kimote, company secretary Joseph Ng’etich and advisory committee chairman John Matiri, who have been charged with abuse of office for aiding the fraud. They have all denied the allegations.