Juma Kwayera
The Guardian (UK)
February 4, 2005

Nairobi: Fresh claims by the British High Commissioner to Kenya, Sir Edward Clay, that the government abets corruption within its ranks have elicited angry reaction in Nairobi, with critics of President Mwai Kibaki’s administration calling for opening up of the budget for the Office of the President to parliamentary scrutiny to hem in runaway sleaze.

Two Members of Parliament said yesterday they would move a substantive motion in parliament to remove the House from the control of the executive; a factor that makes is impossible to impeach an errant head of state.

The MPs, from both the opposition and the governing National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), were in agreement that President Kibaki had outlived his usefulness as a transition leader and called upon him to step aside in favour of a more competent person to lead in the war against grand corruption.

The UK envoy’s remarks are likely to ignite a major diplomatic row between London and Nairobi, with western donors likely to put pressure on Kibaki to sack grubby members of his government. When the envoy took on the government head on last July, Kibaki’s allies told him off. They even wanted the envoy to be deported.

Commenting on claims by Clay that the Office of the President was the “leading customer of corruption”, Kanu Shadow Minister of Finance Billow Kerrow expressed dismay at the manner President Kibaki has been managing the public finances, even as his ministers are implicated in all manner of financial fiddling.

“What the envoy said is not new; it is the same thing we have been saying in parliament with regard to off-budget spending. The budget for the Office of the President is not open to House scrutiny on the basis of national security, hence the impunity with which irregular tendering for goods and services is done,” said Kerrow.

Speaking at the Journalists Year Award ceremony organised by the Kenya Union of Journalists on Wednesday night, Edward once again tore into the Kibaki administration for failing to rein in errant ministers who, he said, have been implicated in corrupt deals that had cost the taxpayer in excess of Ksh15, 000.

The latest revelations involve two civilian ships being built in Spain for the Kenya Navy. Inquiries by The Guardian confirmed that the Ministry of National Security had issued the tender for the ships.

The ship would be converted into warships upon arrival in Kenya. Of significant importance is that the purchases of the military hardware are being made at a time when the country faces no real or perceived external security threat.

The envoy attributed the unnecessary purchases to international merchants of corruption who are represented in the higher echelons of the Kibaki administration. “The old networks are still in business and fighting back,” he said.

“Corruption was rife in the procurement process; indeed the networks of corruption remained the critical determinant of what government procured,” said the envoy.

Somewhere between kitu kidogo (bribe) and the conclusion of a contract worth millions dollars goes through bent procedures, he said.

Kerrow said the tender for the supply of the two ships was given out at the behest of a member of Kenya’s First Family with the knowledge of the Minister of National Security, Dr Chris Murungaru, and Minister of Finance David Mwiraria.

The two were also last year indicted by parliament for financial improprieties that related to procurement of goods and services running into billions of shillings.

Insurance firms associated with Dr Murungaru or his friends have secured lucrative contracts to cover state-owned corporations such as the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen).

While Mwiraria is trying to head off allegations of abuse of office after he exempted his colleague, Minister of Co-operatives Njeru Ndwiga from paying stamp duty on parcel of land he recently bought. Ndigwa used the same plot as a collateral to apply for a huge bank loan.

The envoy spoke in the presence of Vice-President Moody Awori and Government Spokesman, Dr Alfred Mutua. He revealed that he had handed over to the government a list of 20 suspect tenders, four of which he said dwarfed the forensic laboratory and terrorist-proof passport equipment that would cost the government over Ksh7 billion had the irregular tenders for deals not been exposed by parliament mid last year.

Since then, the envoy said, the merchants of graft have been on the rampage and had managed to siphon more than Ksh15 billion in the intervening period between last July and now.

Fresh revelations of massive corruption in the Kibaki administration come on the back of statistics released by the Central Bank of Kenya, which put the country’s external debt at Ksh700 billion.

Kerrow said the veil over the spending of the Office of the President must be removed and all tenders for the procurement of goods and services for Kenya’s security forces be opened to competitive bidding.

“The runaway corruption can only be controlled if the excesses of the Office of the President are checked,” said the shadow finance minister.

Kerrow’s sentiments received support from a member of the coalition, Ford Kenya Member of Parliament, Dr Bonny Khalwale, who told The Guardian that the new revelations could not have come at a worse time for the president’s handlers who are trying to quell a rebellion in the ruling coalition that threatens the survival of the two-year old government.

“Since the Anglo Leasing and Finance scandal was first exposed last year, the president has done nothing to prove that he is not part of the thieving clique from Mt Kenya.

We expected him to take action against two of the ministers that were indicted by the Parliamentary Accounts Committee following the scam, but he did not.

The president must come clean or be forced to listen to the voice of the voiceless man on the streets in the same way the electorate did to (former President Daniel arap) Moi,” Dr Khalwale said.

But as Kenyans digested the implications of Clay’s revelations, senior members of the Kibaki administration remained tight-lipped yesterday.

The Guardian tried to reach a number of ministers for comments and they were all said to be in meetings throughout most of the day.