Did the Sh32b fake currency cache sink Rashid Echesa?

Yesterday’s sacking of Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa (pictured) came as a surprise to many.

Though talk has been rife that President Uhuru Kenyatta was preparing a purge at the Cabinet targeting CSs whose ministries have been dogged by rampant corruption, Echesa’s name hardly featured on the likely casualties.

Unlike some of his Cabinet colleagues who have even recorded statements with investigators over losses of billions within their docket, his Ministry has not been on the public radar over graft – at least for the time he has been in office.

However, sources yesterday told Saturday Standard that Echesa could have been hounded out of office – only a year after his appointment – over his possible links with suspects connected to last week’s Sh 32 billion fake currency seizure in Ruiru, Kiambu county.

The money, in local and foreign currencies, was found stashed in boxes in a house off the Eastern by-pass near the popular Kamaki’s area, leading to the arrest of three people – a couple and their female business associate.

Investigators linked the huge cache to a gang of seven that had only two days before been arrested for conning business magnate Naushad Merali of Sh 10 million, with one calling the city tycoon posing as President Kenyatta.

Those arraigned in a Nairobi Chief Magistrate Court are Joseph Waswa, Duncan Muchai, Isaac Wanyonyi, William Simiyu, David Luganya, Gilbert Kirunja and Anthony Wafula

Waswa is a close associate of the sacked Cabinet Secretary and police sources claim they suspect that the two have private dealings, which also involves an international network linked to money laundering, among other cross-border crimes.

Questions are now being asked as to whether the suspected links to this network could have led to the sacking of the Cabinet Secretary, whose appointment to the position was as controversial as his dismissal.

Our efforts yesterday to get a comment from Echesa on the sacking as well as claims made against him by top security officials were futile as his phone remained switched off.

Last week the former CS had however admitted to a local daily that he knew Waswa, describing him as a “personal friend”. He, however, denied claims that the man alleged to have conned Merali was his business partner.

Between August and December 2017 of last year about 11 girls of Asian origin came into the country under unclear circumstances, ending up as dancers in a Nairobi nightclub.

In those four months, the girls whose passports indicated they accessed the country on tourist visas, had managed to regularize their paperwork by obtaining special immigration passes.
 
A special immigration pass is a document issued to persons given specific employment by a specific employer for a short duration not exceeding three months or to someone receiving education or training at an educational or training establishment within the country by which he/she has been accepted as a student/pupil.
 
The circumstance under which the passes were issued were part of investigations and court proceedings that linked Echesa to the case. Evidence presented in court showed that Echesa allegedly personally signed off the entry of the dancers to "promote transnational cultures."

A day after they were charged in court, and in clear indication that Echesa was not operating at the core of government, the dancers were deported to their home countries.

Coincidentally, and as fate would have it, Echesa, a strong critic of former Prime Minister Raila Odinga had dared - almost mockingly - the opposition chief to sack him from the Cabinet, “if he had become the appointing authority”.

Echesa was accusing Raila, who has turned into President Uhuru’s close ally after the handshake, of being jealous of his appointment to the Cabinet, daring him to orchestrate his sacking.

“I want to dare you Tinga wherever you are come and sack me. If you are the appointing authority in this country, come and sack me,” Echesa is quoted saying in a clip that went viral yesterday after he was hounded out of office.