Opposition leader Raila Odinga yesterday named top Government officials who he termed as ‘persons of interest’ in the Eurobond saga, and demanded the immediate resignation of three top Treasury chiefs led by Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich.
Raila said Mr Rotich, Treasury Permanent Secretary Kamau Thugge and Accountant-General Bernard Ndung’u should quit and be charged in court with acts or omissions that undermined the Constitution by refusing to deposit the Eurobond proceeds immediately and in full into the Consolidated Fund.
Other Government officials in Raila’s "persons of interest" list — whom the Opposition chief said owed Kenyans an explanation on how Sh250 billion bond proceeds were handled and spent — include President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Chief of Staff Joseph Kinyua, Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) chairman Mohammed Nyaoga, former CBK governor Njuguna Ndung’u, CBK’s Financial Markets Director John Birech and his Financial Management colleague Moses Muthui.
But threats of legal action from those named came fast and furious. Treasury CS Rotich was quick to respond. He condemned Raila’s action of linking individuals to the alleged scandal, saying he had no mandate to do so. He maintained that no money was lost.
"You can see that someone is just trying to play some games. The important thing is that there is no money lost," Rotich told The Standard.
Mr Kinyua also asked Raila to retract the claims or face legal action while Nyaoga vowed to take legal action.
And in a statement last evening, CBK said Nyaoga was appointed as chairman of the board on June 19, 2015, and had no access to or participation in the Eurobond matter.
"The allegations that CBK officials were involved in any misappropriation of these funds have no basis and is erroneous," CBK said.
But Raila reiterated that Sh88 billion ($999 million) was missing and that the documents of remittances of the money into the country were forged. He wants President Kenyatta to declare the matter a "national disaster".
At a time when the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has already asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to close the investigations file and the Auditor General to carry out a forensic audit on the Eurobond billions, the Opposition leader accused the local institutions of lacking capacity to unearth official theft of public funds.
"The scheme is so elaborate, so thick and so reckless that we believe these officers acted for or on instructions from bosses higher up the Executive ladder. Your guess is as good as mine on who the owners of the plot really are," said Raila.
He asked the President to seek an independent international forensic audit to track the whereabouts of the Sh88 billion that was not paid into the Consolidated Fund.
While calling for the resignation of the three Treasury officials, Raila also accused them of fabricating documents to cover up massive loss of public funds and deliberately misleading the Public Accounts Committee and taxpayers that the Eurobond proceeds were paid in full into the Consolidated Fund.
He claimed that there were no bank statements or third party evidence of what happened to the money deposited into the account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Raila said that the National Treasury had been engaged in an elaborate scheme of deception intended to mislead taxpayers that the bond proceeds were deposited into the Consolidated Fund, even where there was clear evidence to the contrary.
"The National Treasury did not pay immediately into the Consolidated Fund the full amount of the net proceeds of the Sovereign Bond of Sh173.9 billion (US$1.9 billion) received on June 24, 2014," said the former Prime Minister.
He said Uhuru should also order an audit of expenditure of Eurobond proceeds and immediately implement the Treasury Single Account to remove the plethora of opaque revenue collection accounts through which corrupt government officials divert revenues before they are paid into the Consolidated Fund.
