PS Peter Mangiti: This is what I told my mother about the NYS mega scam

NAIROBI: On Sunday October 11, 2014, Planning Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti took a long lonely drive to his rural home in Kanyada, Homa Bay, on a mission to assure his 87-year-old mother of his innocence.

She had heard through the radio that his son had been implicated in a multi-million-shilling rip-off involving inflation of the National Youth Service tenders, a department falling squarely under him.

She was distraught. As the chief accounting officer, it would be hoped that Mangiti would have control of the situation.

“I told her what I am telling you. My conscience is very clear on this. The people involved know this because they cleverly edged me out of their schemes and hid information from me, information which would have helped me save the situation early enough,” Mangiti told The Standard on Sunday.

He said the matter of the Sh695 million commitments through IFMIS was concealed to him by the very officer he had delegated his AIE functions to: Deputy Director General of NYS Aden Harakhe.

“I came to learn of it through my juniors almost a week later, not through the person I appointed. Still, I was able to rush to the Treasury and deactivate the commitments.”

He concedes that it is odd to have a junior officer he delegated his accounting powers side-step him.

He says he confronted Harakhe, who said he had informed the Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru. “This may have fed into perception of my alleged reluctance to act,” said Mangiti. Asked whether he took action against those who kept the matter off him, he said: “I recorded my displeasure with them.”

Mangiti says he is not the AIE holder for the ministry because he has already delegated the function to various “able” officers under the law. He said he has a zero role in the IFMIS process as well.

“My work is to guide, to caution and to ensure that the systems, organs and persons are working,” he said.