Waiguru illegally asked for Sh3.5b additional funding, Mangiti says

Former Planning PS in the Devolution Ministry Peter Mangiti. He says Former Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru illegally asked for Sh3.5 billion in additional funding. (PHOTO: BONIFACE OKENDO/ STANDARD)

Former Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru illegally asked for Sh3.5 billion in additional funding, sacked Planning boss Peter Mangiti has claimed.

Mr Mangiti claimed Ms Waiguru made the request through a supplementary budget yet the National Youth Service (NYS) had not made a request for the cash.

According to the former Principal Secretary, part of this money was used to pay companies associated with businesswoman Josephine Kabura.

Mangiti made the damning accusations when he appeared before the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Wednesday.

PAC is investigating the loss of billions of shillings at NYS through inflated tenders and payments for fictitious deliveries.

Kept in dark

“However, activities for the revised budget of Sh3.5 billion obtained by the ministry towards the end of the financial year, while in principle had a basis in the overall work plan, did not emanate from NYS as the implementing agency,” Mangiti told MPs at Parliament buildings.

The funds sought by Waiguru were provided after she supposedly raised the request at the Cabinet level, before an approval was granted to allow the release just days to the end of the 2013-14 financial year.

Mangiti Wednesday claimed he was helpless as hundreds of millions of shillings were siphoned out of the Devolution ministry even though he was the accounting officer.

Mangiti, whose case on complicity in the NYS scam is still in court, said he was kept in the dark as the theft continued.

He accused Waiguru of presiding over a system that allowed junior officers to run the show.

In further comments that drew both surprise and responses from MPs, Mangiti said he had no control over the Integrated Financial Management Systems (IFMIS) through which the money was stolen.

“I had no intervention role on the payment systems within IFMIS. When you make me an accounting officer, you don’t make me a supernatural being who can know what people are doing at 3am. It is very difficult if one does not have power to track payment in the system,” Mangiti said.

Inner circle

He said he never promoted Adan Harakhe to senior deputy director general of NYS. Mr Harakhe is one of the officers who allegedly authorised payments to the sham companies, and whom he said was part of Waiguru’s inner circle at the ministry.

“From the onset of the unfolding fraud, and throughout the investigations, the CS never found it necessary to engage me at all... instead she propagated particularly among interested political class, the narrative that I was an opposition mole and saboteur of government agenda...” he added.

Mangiti also accused his former boss of asking him to sign executive orders over which he had no control, adding that he and Waiguru disagreed on some of the memos he was required to sign.

He however found himself in a tight spot when he failed to reconcile his claims of helplessness and his role as the ministry’s accounting officer.

He said he had on several occasions protested the illegal goings on at the ministry, but blamed ‘circumstances’ for non -implementation of his interventions.

Detect payments

Asked by PAC Chairman Nicholas Gumbo (Rarieda MP) at what point he realised that money was being wired to sham companies, he said he was unable to detect the payments, describing IFMIS as “opaque”.

“The Kabura case was very difficult to detect particularly where officers are short circuiting the system. However, there are records to show that I was very keen to understand how the costs were coming up and regularly I demanded for reports from the director general and he gave me reports which I had no reason not to believe (that they depicted) the correct picture of expenditures,” Mangiti argued.

The former PS was taken to task to explain the circumstances under which he signed Mr Harakhe’s promotion letter, which ironically described the officer as “hardworking, dedicated, honest, duty conscious, mature and reliable”. Although Mangiti explained he only signed the letter on behalf of the CS, he could not produce the memo directing him to sign the promotion letter.

Mr Gumbo said: “One gets the impression that you were prepared to tolerate all these things, but things deteriorated when she (Waiguru) started calling you a mole. It is not unusual for people to fall apart, even in marriage.”