Anne Waiguru to face anti-graft agency over NYS scandal Monday

NAIROBI: Former Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru is set to appear before the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Monday.

Officials at the commission and those close to her said she is expected at the commission’s offices at around 9am to say what she knows about the Sh791 million National Youth Service (NYS) scandal. This comes after a suspect at the centre of the scam, Josephine Kabura Irungu, swore an affidavit linking Waiguru to the scandal.

Kabura will appear before the commission tomorrow. The commission had earlier closed the NYS file and cleared Waiguru of any wrongdoing in the scandal but has re-opened the probe against her after Kabura’s affidavit.

But EACC claimed the closed file touched on different matters, but not on the Sh791 million scam. The commission claimed they were not handling the matter, a claim the Directorate of Criminal Investigations disputed yesterday.

It emerged the Director of Public Prosecutions had on September 25, 2015 directed that EACC be invited to join the prosecution team to participate in the review of the file in order to determine matters falling under its legal mandate.

The DPP then noted that several aspects of the fraud case fell under the EACC.

The whistleblower

“Several aspects of this fraud would properly fall under the mandate of EACC under the Anti-Corruption and Economics Act 2013, the Leadership and Integrity Act and the Public Officer Ethics Act. I have therefore directed that EACC be invited to join the prosecution team to participate in the review of the file in order to determine matters falling under its legal mandate,” said DPP Keriako Tobiko then.

And when she went to the EACC, Waiguru told the officials she was the one who blew the whistle on the fraud and she was ready to be their witness.

“I first wrote to the DCI on June 5 asking them to investigate various IFMIS transactions that had been reported suspect. To avert financial loss, the Authority to Incur Expenditure holder flagged the matter immediately and this prompted my action,” she said.

This puts EACC in an awkward position given their claims that they were not handling the Sh791 million saga and they had initially cleared her.

Kabura, who says her firms – Form Home Builders, Roof and All Trading and Reinforced Concrete Technologies – received Sh791 million for the supply of road construction materials for the Kibera and Mukuru slums, claims Waiguru engaged her and even oversaw registration of the firms.