from ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2011
Some Kenyans were yesterday congratulating the government of Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga shortly it said teachers and the government finally brokered a deal to end a four-day strike that has paralysed learning in public schools. As part of the agreement, 18,060 teachers on contract will be given permanent jobs next month. An additional 5,000 new teachers will be employed in January.
The only reason why you should not celebrate even as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta is expressing his joy for having held very fruitful discussions with Knut and he was glad to say that they have agreed, is because in order to recover Ksh 5 billion which was diverted from teachers to pay taxes for 222 Members of Parliament and boosting the salaries of the militaries, it will mean that you must pay extra taxes.
It means that by the end of this month they would have taxed you enough to employ 18,000 teachers and by January next year they would have robbed you enough to hire the remaining 5,000 teachers-‘so it is your money’.
Did you know that you are still paying taxes to recover the acquisition of T-72s which caused significant controversy last year? You are still taxed to pay for thirty-three vehicles ordered from Ukraine, and other military equipments alleged to have been channelled to Sudan.
You have not even finished paying Sh7 billion which according to Controller and Auditor General’s report for last financial year mysteriously went missing from treasury with Beth Mugo’s Public Health tops the list of ministries with unaccounted for funds standing at Sh3.6 billion.
Remember still, you have not finished paying Goldenberg, the longest running scandal where the Kenyan government subsidized exports of gold, paying exporters in Kenyan Shillings (Sh) 35 percent over their foreign currency earnings. In this case, the gold was smuggled from Congo and it cost Kenya the equivalent of more than 10 percent of the country’s annual GDP.
This is not to mention Sh 360 million helicopter serving contract in South Africa. You have not even finished paying for Sh 4.1 billion Navy ship deals that never existed. It was alleged that a Navy project was given to Euromarine, a company associated with Anura Pereira, the tender awarded in a process that has been criticised as irregular.
Although the tender was worth Sh4.1 billion, military analysts say a similar vessel could have been built for Sh1.8 billion. It would mean that the only money paid to the Anura Pereira Company was 1.8 billion-the rest of the money which went to the wrong pockets it you to pay.
Did you know also that you are still paying Kamsons Motors tendered for the supply of Mahindra Jeeps to the Police Department in the mid 1990s for close to Sh 1 million each, at a time when showrooms would have charged customers a sixth of the price?
What about the Prisons department lost money worth $ 3 million after contracting Hallmark International, a company associated with Mr Deepak Kamani of Kamsons Motors, for the supply of 30 boilers?
According to the report only half of the boilers were delivered – from India and not the United States as had been agreed. It means that the rest that never existed and went into wrong pockets it is you who is paying-no wonder why the cost of life in Kenya is stressing.
The cost of life will even be more stressful since you have not even finishing paying the construction of Nexus, a secret military communication centre in Karen, Nairobi. The Government, through the Ministry of Transport, spent Sh 2.6 billion to construct the complex.
Three years later, military personnel have not moved into the centre. A phantom company, Nedermar BV Technologies, which is said to have its headquarters in Holland, implemented the secret project. The tendering process for the Nexus project was circumvented.
This is not to mention between January 2003 and September 2004 when the National Rainbow Coalition government spent about $12 million cars that were mostly for the personal use of senior government officials. The vehicles included 57 Mercedes-Benz, as well as Land Cruisers, Mitsubishi Pajeros, Range Rovers, Nissan Terranos and Nissan Patrols. The $12-million substantially exceeded what the government spent over the 2003/04 financial year on controlling malaria.
This is again not to mention in 2005 when plans to buy a sophisticated £20 million passport equipment system from France became a ghost. Here government wanted to replace its passport printing system. The transaction was originally quoted at 6 million euros from François Charles Oberthur of Paris – the world’s leading supplier of Visa and MasterCards, but was awarded to a British firm, the Anglo-Leasing and Finance Company Limited, at 30 million euros, who would have sub-contracted the same French firm to do the work.
This is again not to mention 31 August 2007 when The Guardian newspaper featured on its front page a story about more than GBP 1 billion transferred out of Kenya by the family and associates of former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi. The Guardian sourced the information from the Wikileaks article The looting of Kenya under President Moi and its analysis of a leaked investigative document (“the Kroll report”) prepared for the Kibaki government in 2004 in order to try to recover money stolen during Moi’s rule.
Did you know that the money has never been recovered? Who then will recover this money? Definitely it is your money. Did you also know that in June 2008, the Grand Regency Scandal, wherein the Central Bank of Kenya is alleged to have secretly sold a luxury hotel in Nairobi to an unidentified group of Libyan investors for more than 4 billion Kenyan Shillings?
Finance Minister then Amos Kimunya negotiated the sale, and was censured in a near-unanimous motion by the Kenyan Parliament, though he vehemently denied the charges. He was suspended but later was reinstated by Kibaki for lack of evidence.
Do you also remember more than 80,000 bags of maize valued at Sh150 million allocated to briefcase millers and a defunct company in Nakuru at a time when the country was facing a serious shortage of maize? It is you to recover this stolen money.
Some of the maize, which was meant to cushion Kenyans against rising maize flour prices and a looming famine, was sold in Southern Sudan for US$80 (Sh6,000) for a 90 kg bag. The allocation operation was running parallel to government efforts to avert a looming famine facing some 10 million Kenyans, as reported by Nation on the maize scandal.
This was about the same time more than $1 million was missing from the country’s free primary education program. This is of course does not include the current one of Sh 4 billion.
Since it is only President Kibaki is the only man in Kenya with power to abet, condone or stop corruption by just raising his hand, looting of public funds will still remain number one enemy of the people of Kenya after tribalism. Kibaki has no choice but to reinstate politicians who are loyal to him or belong to his party.
It is against the background that even after Kenyans insisted that Moses Wetangula should not be reinstated he went a head doing so even when it is clear that there were corrupt deals in his ministry- For details on Wetangula corruption CLICK HERE.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail- ppa@africaonline.co.ke
omolo.ouko@gmail.com
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org