Governor Waiguru: New NYS case was inevitable

Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru (second left) in the UK to speak about devolution at Chatham House in London.

Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru has said she is not surprised that another scandal has rocked the National Youth Service.

Revisiting her days at the helm of NYS at an international forum, Ms Waiguru described her efforts to unearth the rot at the service.

She was speaking on devolution at the Chatham House in London, UK, where she recounted how she invited investigators to probe the Sh791 million scandal that rocked her tenure at NYS.

Waiguru said that, through her lawyers, she had written to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) at least six times between 2016 and January 2018 of this year asking them to make public their findings.

She said she had suggested that a public inquiry be set up so that the truth could come out.

“It is therefore no wonder that three years after I left the ministry, the same NYS department is engulfed in another major scandal of Sh10 billion, 10 times larger than the initial one,” said Waiguru.

A pawn

On her resignation, the governor claimed she was used as a pawn in political fights by some powerful individuals.

She said despite being the whistle blower in the Sh791 million scandal, she was vilified for her decision to invite the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to look into the case.

“What I did not know was that I had attracted the ire of faceless individuals that were behind the scam which led to a political rebuttal,” said Waiguru.

She claimed that the witch-hunt persisted and that despite being cleared, some individuals went further and implicated her in sensational affidavits.

She said the Asset and Recovery unit had traced and recovered the cash and assets acquired from the initial Sh791 million.

Waiguru said the fight against corruption could not be won without evaluating the forces involved.

“Transitional economies like Kenya exhibit the identical challenges of weak accountability structures and ineffective institutions resulting in waste and loss of public funds and resources,” she said.