From: People For Peace
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BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2012

The rivalry between Raila Odinga and his deputy Musalia Mudavadi on Monday with the Prime Minister’s campaign secretariat asking the Sabatia MP to explain his role in a series of scandals that have rocked the country is indeed very absurd.

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His rivals will first challenge him on the role of some of his pentagon’s series of corruptions. He went ahead accommodating them even when he knew very well they were corrupt.

In early 2009 when a national scandal erupted when a number of prominent politicians, including one of the pentagon teams and former Minister of Agriculture William Ruto, were accused of over a KSh3.6 billion maize scam, Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s family featured with a parliamentary committee recommending that his son Fidel Castro and associates (including his personal assistant) be investigated over the deal.

Some political analysts argued that Ruto’s problem over the maize issue was not of his own making but a calculated move by enemies of the ODM to bring about a rift in the party. One of the reasons is that publicly like Mudavadi Ruto divorced with Raila.

Ruto’s problem with the party began when a group of ODM MPs asked him to stop criticising Prime Minister Raila Odinga after he said he would lead the party’s supporters in Rift Valley to decamp from the party.

Similar game is going to be applied to Mudavadi. ODM want to invite Mudavdi to explain a lot of things, among them his role as the confluence of Anglo Leasing and Goldenberg affairs and the mystery of Sh16 billion.

Other areas include malfeasance in the Metrological Department; procurement in Posta Corporation; mysterious shares in a cellphone service providing company; questions at the Kenya Ports Authority and the failed privatization of the Postal Corporation.

The other scandals include financial dealings at National Social Security Fund and in the Communications Commission of Kenya and as well as “what is commonly known as the DT Dobie Affair,” unveiling his scandal from August 1982, when he was a student at the University of Nairobi, to date”, including the cemetery scandal in which the government irregularly purchased a piece of land valued at Sh20M for a Sh283M.

Ruto was not pleased with Raila and the manner in which he was handling the Waki Report and the planned eviction of families from the Mau forest water catchment. Among politicians who wanted to quit with Ruto included Franklin Bett.

Bett was seeking an explanation as to why it had taken this long to resettle the evictees even as Prime Minister Raila Odinga maintains that the finance ministry had been reluctant to release the 4 million shillings set aside to purchase land to resettle the victims.

Bett was silence and became one of the strongest supporters of Raila when he was given the Ministry of Roads. William Ruto, Franklin Bett, and assistant minister Jebii Kilimo (Cooperative Development) accused Mr Raila Odinga of seeking international recognition over the Mau at the expense of settlers in the forest.

One of the politicians who is still with Raila and nothing has been said about him is Henry Kosgey. He has been accused that when serving as Minister of Culture and Social Services, Kosgey was part of the team that brought in American marketing consultant Dick Berg to assist Kenya in organizing and hosting the fourth All-Africa Games in 1987.

Berg’s task was to assist the Government of Kenya in raising funds to support the games; he is accused of fleeing the country with roughly $2.6 million before the games began. Kosgey is also alleged to have participated in the looting of the assets of the Games’ organizing committee by misappropriating funds designated for costs associated with the Games for his personal use.

Kosgey is also accused of looting the real estate assets of former parastatal Kenya National Assurance Company (KNAC) when he served as its director from 1989 to 1992. Under his management, KNAC is also alleged to have made illegal loans and paid out fradulent claims to politically connected individuals.

By illegally appropriating KNAC’s most valuable assets, Kosgey reduced the company to an undercapitalized shell that ultimately collapsed and failed to meet its financial obligations to pension and life insurance policy holders. At the time the KNAC went into receivership, it held more than $13 million in life insurance policies.

As a result of the collapse of KNAC, 900 employees lost their jobs and thousands of Kenyans from all walks of life lost their pensions or did not receive insurance payments upon the deaths of beneficiaries. The former employees also allege that the company owes them an estimated $655,000 in pension benefits.

Kosgey (along with fellow minister Sally Kosgei) is also named in the Ndung’u report as the improper recipient of more than 300 hectares of the South Nandi forest in 1999.

According to local anti-corruption NGO Mars Group Kenya, the illegal carving out of a total of 1,170 hectares of forest land was supposed to be part of a land swap in which Kosgey and two other politicians would exchange the forest land for farmland held by local farmers and the minority Ngerek community.

When the exchange took place, many of the intended beneficiaries were excluded and rendered landless. In 1995, Kosgey was serving on the board of directors of Kakuzi Tea Company, which is still in existence and is publicly traded on the Nairobi and London stock exchanges.

He is also accused of colluding with other corrupt directors in stripping Kakuzi of some of its prime assets by illegally transferring 97 hectares of Siret Farm (a tea plantation) to the Tinderet Development Trust Company, a shell company co-owned by Kosgey and his son Allan. In the face of declining global tea prices and burdened by debt of more than $8.5 million, Kakuzi put the remainder of Siret Farm up for public sale in 2007.

In July 2009, Kosgey was publicly accused by his Assistant Minister Nderiti Mureithi (a member of Kibaki’s Party of National Unity) of improperly firing three heads of parastatals (the Industrial Development Bank, the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute, and the Kenya Industrial Estates) without following proper procedures and without consulting the boards of directors of those companies.

In an interview with national TV outlet NTV, Mureithi called Kosgey “a throwback to the dark days of the Moi era” and alleged that the three directors were unilaterally fired by Kosgey without any consultation and replacements selected by him without a transparent or competitive recruitment process as required by Kenyan law.

According to Human Rights report, the economic crimes, that include land grabbing and the 2007/08 post-election violence, are part of the violations that the named individuals allegedly committed. The report is titled: Lest we forget; the faces of impunity in Kenya.

Among those named are Cabinet ministers William Ntimama (ODM), Yusuf Haji (PNU), Sally Kosgei (ODM), John Michuki (PNU), Najib Balala (immediate ODM and one of the pentagon teams), Franklin Bett (ODM), Uhuru Kenyatta (PNU), Musa Sirma (ODM), Margret Kamar (ODM) and George Saitoti (PNU).

Kamar and Sirma were named into the cabinet the same day the impunity report was released. Uhuru is linked with the ongoing case at the ICC over violation of human rights during the 2007/08 election violence.

Ntimama’s name is linked to tribal clashes through the Akiwumi report. The report associates Haji with his failure to deal with the 1990s tribal clashes in Nakuru when he was the PC. He is also linked to sections of the land report (Ndung’u) which accused him of irregularly acquiring of public land.

Sally, Saitoti and Bett are linked to land issues while Michuki appears because of the raid on the Standard newspapers when he was Internal Security minister. The list also contains six assistant ministers. They are Ramadhan Kajembe, Elizabeth Ongoro, Simeon Lesirma, Francis Baya and Kabando wa Kabando.

There are also permanent secretaries and former head of public service Francis Muthaura, Francis Kimemia (security by then- now head of public service), Mohammed Isahakia (Prime Minister’s office) Romano Kiome (agriculture), Mark Bor (Public Health), Edward Sambili (Planning) and Joseph Kinyua (Finance).

Isahakia and senior administrator in the PM’s office Caroli Omondi are mentioned because of the alleged role of price variation in the maize scandal report. MPs named are Boaz Kaino, Onyango Anyanga, Peter Kiilu, John Pesa, Peter Mwathi, Fred Kapondi, William Ruto, Henry Kosgei, Stanley Githunguri, Chris Okemo, Wilson Litole and Zakayo Cheruiyot.

As you can see practically no one is safe in this government when it comes to impunity. It is against the background that my Kenya has not yet come. It is very unfortunate that I will not live to see my Kenya because it will come fifty years plus from now when all these recycles corrupt politicians would have left for real and true Kenyans.

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