Wetangula faces test of his career over the Tokyo scandal

By David Ochami

Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetengalu will on Tuesday respond to demands he resigns to pave way for investigations into alleged impropriety in the purchase of property in foreign missions.

The Parliamentary Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee moved the Motion on Thursday, initiating debate on a report calling for the minister’s resignation over the purchase of Kenya’s Embassy in Tokyo.

When recommending the resignation or sacking of Wetangula, the committee concluded Kenya might not be holding a valid registration document for the controversial diplomatic property bought for Sh1.54 billion early, this year.

The committee demands to know from Wetangula if there was any legitimate or valid registration of Kenya’s interest in the property, and the fate of payment of Japanese Yen 1.75 billion.

Parliament also wants to know if the Government proceeded to buy a building after rejecting a plot in a prime Tokyo neighbourhood, which the Japanese Government offered.

It was further alleged the purchase of the embassy was done behind the back of former High Commissioner to Japan, Dennis Awori.

Other allegations against the minister and PS Thuita Mwangi are that they waged a campaign of untruths to cover up evidence, when the taxpayers may have lost billions of shillings.

The committee also claims Press advertisements to procure lawyers and bids for alternative plots in Tokyo were restricted, contrary to Kenya’s procurement laws.

Also accused is the charge de affaires at the Kenyan embassy, Allan Mburu, for alleged contravention of the Government Contracts Act for witnessing the property transfer.

The legality of the agreement signed to buy the property is one of the many questions the committee wants the minister to explain, and the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) to investigate.

The report by the committee alleged that proceeds from the sale of the defunct Kenyan mission in Lagos was wired to Tokyo to buy Kuriyama’s building, which the Kenyan authorities had rented for decades instead of its “intended purpose of constructing a chancery and residence in Abuja” where the Nigerian Government had offered a plot.

After Kenya bought Kuriyama’s buildings, a part of the mission was gutted in a mysterious fire, which the Office of the President did not investigate.

Awori, says although he was involved in previous efforts to buy a mission in the Asian nation, crucial decisions leading to the final purchase were done behind his back. The report in Parliament says he was visiting Gaborone, Botswana and did not chair the evaluation and inspection team meeting that authorised the purchase.

The minister is accused of misleading the public that the property was properly valued and procured, and was worth the amount given against the testimony of two lawyers – Yoshita Kijima and Shoji Yanagawa.

Legal fee

The minister is also accused of misleading committee on legal fee.

In one of the sale agreements, signed by Allan Mburu, the charge de affaires at the Kenyan Embassy in apparent contravention of the Government Contracts Act, a legal scrivener, not real lawyer, witnessed the property transfer because the cost of a lawyer was prohibitive.

The committee says a lawyer would have cost the equivalent of Sh3.2million and not over Sh40 million as alleged. In a legal brief to the Kenya mission in Tokyo on June 16, last year, Yoshita disclosed the Kenyan authorities were in a haste to buy the property, by paying 80 per cent of its cost before conducting adequate research on the credit worthiness of the vendor and tax liabilities on the property.

He said the Kenyan mission was engaging in a “fatal risk” in proposing to pay “80 per cent of the price upfront” and concluded that the “price that was offered and agreed here is extremely higher than the true values of the properties.”

Yoshita said the properties’ value was no more than a billion Yen and concluded the property was properly valued and procured.

In an earlier brief on April 7, Shoji advised the Kenyans to buy the properties for no more than 1.09 billion Yen and warned that Kuriyama was demanding a high price to cover his debts with a bank.

An architect quoted in the report said the deal with Kuriyama would be more costly than buying another plot and putting up a building.

According documents tabled by the Defence and Foreign Relations Committee two documents were signed by Mwangi and Mburu on June 30, last year, to authorise the deal.

In one agreement Mburu signed on Kenya’s behalf with the scrivener, acting as witness against Kuriyama in Tokyo. Another agreement shows on the same day Mburu signed for Kenya, also in Tokyo against Kuriyama, with Mburu acting as witness.