Equity Bank denies any links with deported Ruto associate Harun Aydin

Equity Bank has denied any links with Turkish investor Harun Aydin who is an associate of Deputy President William Ruto.

Equity Bank Managing Director Gerald Warui told Parliament on Wednesday August 25 that the bank did not have any account in Aydin's name.

He also denied any knowledge of a Sh15 billion transaction offered to the Turkish investor.

"I am not aware of any phone call from DP William Ruto on the Sh15 billion transaction with Equity. Turkish Businessman Harun Aydin doesn’t have any relationship with Equity bank. He’s not our customer, doesn’t posses any credit facility from us," he said.

Equity Bank Kenya Managing Director Gerald Warui Pulse Live Kenya

He asked for time to find out to who, the said phone call may have been made to because the firm has many senior officers.

Members of Parliament also invited officers from the Kenya Revenue Authority to answer questions regarding the Turkish investor whose deportation was not taken lightly by Deputy President William Ruto.

In a past interview, the DP had claimed that his intervention facilited the award of a Sh15 billion loan to a friend who constructed a Covid-19 vaccine facility in Uganda.

"The investor of that factory came to this office and sat on the same seat where you are seated two years ago and asked if I could connect them with Equity Bank," DP Ruto told Inooro FM.

"I picked the phone, called Equity and told them: 'There is an East African investor in my office. You have a branch in Uganda. Can you help him set up the business he wants?' The businessman got $150 million (Sh15 billion) and used it to set up a factory," Ruto said.

There were also reports that Dei Pharmaceuticals, the company that built the factory had its bank accounts frozen.

Nation reported that it took the intervention of President Yoweri Museveni to clear the Pharmaceuticals firm's accounts.

"Why couldn't Financial Intelligence check what these people were doing on the ground?" Museveni asked he laid down a foundation stone for a laboratory named after him.

It is emerging now that the said phone call by DP Ruto was not about the Turkish investor but a different person all together.