Raila Odinga claims Anne Waiguru, Issack Hassan were left out in graft list, but EACC denies

Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga addressing the media at his offices in Nairobi Upper Hill area on Friday. [Photo:Mbugua Kibera/Standard]

Opposition leader Raila Odinga Friday alleged that two names were left out of the graft list released by President Uhuru Kenyatta a few months ago.

With only seven days to go before US President Barack Obama lands in the country, Raila, at a news conference in his Nairobi Capitol Hill offices, named Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru and electoral chief Issack Hassan as those left out of Uhuru’s list.

Raila's onslaught on the duo has been on for some time now. He has railed against Hassan, claiming that the 2013 General Elections were rigged and was particularly irked when Hassan told the Supreme Court that Raila was a "perennial loser" of polls, and therefore his (Raila's) claim that he was rigged out in the last polls had to be dismissed.

"Your guess is as good as mine on why IEBC officials have to be protected. They delivered for Jubilee," the Opposition leader said yesterday.

But the Jubilee leadership immediately dismissed Raila as an “attention seeker struggling for recognition” from the impending visit by President Obama next week.
Speaking a day after he met the chief of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Raila said Waiguru and Hassan should quit and subject themselves to investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

But the authenticity of Raila’s comments were immediately put to question after EACC said the commission is not carrying out any investigations against both Waiguru and Hassan.

“I wish to make it clear that the information provided by the former Prime Minister is completely inaccurate. We are an independent body and we do not carry out our investigations on the basis of politics. The correct position is that we are investigating IFMIS because we got a complaint about it. So far we still have not narrowed down on suspects. If in our investigations we find it necessary to record a statement from Ann Waiguru or anybody else for matter, we shall not hesitate to do that. Similarly we don’t have anything on Hassan," said EACC Deputy Chief Executive Michael Mubea.

Ngilu petition

Obama has already indicated that the fight against graft will be top on his agenda during his visit in Kenya, scheduled to start on Friday.
This happened even as it emerged that there was a silent petition by Jubilee MPs to President Kenyatta to fire suspended Lands Cabinet Secrertary Charity Ngilu over her latest comments against the government.

Ngilu was quoted by local media as having asked the Jubilee government to resign and equally defended former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka over the Yatta National Youth Service land probe. Jubilee MPs were, however, reluctant to discuss this matter on record.

But the Jubilee leadership led by Majority Leader Aden Duale dismissed the CORD leader as one who is on an “attention seeking mission” chasing recognition from the American government.

“How first attention seekers forget. There is nothing new CORD is saying. Jubilee is busy fighting graft perpetuated under the coalition government. Do they remember three Kenyan Embassies were sold, do they remember the maize scandal, the Triton saga, the Yatta land. Now because Obama is coming, they want to be noticed but in actual sense they are idle,” said Duale.

Kikuyu MP Kimani Ichung’wa expressed similar sentiments saying, “Raila Odinga and his CORD bandwagon are just fighting for attention from the American President to bad-mouth the Jubilee government.”
For CS Waiguru, Raila has been on her neck from the day it emerged that the Central Bank and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation were pursuing investigations in her ministry relating to the NYS. “We will not take the President seriously on the war on corruption until all are treated equally. The law must apply on all scandals over IFMIS (the government financial management system), NYS and IEBC in the same way it has happened in other ministries,” Raila said.

TNA chairman and Nominated MP Johnson Sakaja told off the CORD leader. “They are shocked by the great success the National Youth Service is making by transforming the lives of young people. This obviously has a great effect on the lives of young people. As a result, CORD will stop at nothing including going in a historic fishing expedition to make the Cabinet Secretary look dirty. How it is that the Efficiency Monitoring Unit, which was under Odinga, never spoke about the things they are talking about IFMIS now,” posed Sakaja.

Raila alleged that Waiguru has to quit Uhuru’s Cabinet because she allegedly signed a deal for the implementation of the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS), which was under EACC investigation at the time that Uhuru submitted his dossier to Parliament.

“If IFMIS was being investigated by the EACC for the inflation of contracts to the tune of Sh1 billion, why didn’t the Cabinet Secretary at the time of the suspicious transactions step aside?” posed Raila. The “suspect” according to the EACC dossier is “procurement director”.

Raila was armed with letters from the EACC showing that EACC sleuths had sought information from the National Treasury regarding the payments for licensing of IFMIS and consultancy, and for the purchase of Oracle hardware to upgrade the IFMIS servers.

Obama attention

All these payments, he said, were approved by Waiguru on diverse dates between 2011 and 2012.
The contracts were signed when Uhuru’s Chief of Staff, Joseph Kinyua, was the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury and Uhuru was the Minister for Finance, from where he quit to give way to Robinson Githae, under whose tenure more payments were made.

However, Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen dismissed the allegations as “the action and strategy of a leader only interested in a sound bite.’ “This is basically a curtain-raiser for the Obama visit. The intention is to down-play the gains that come with this important visit so that investors do not focus on important matters,” he said.

At the same time, Raila yesterday condemned the attack on Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale at the courts in Nairobi. He said the perpetrators of the “stupid incident” have to be arrested and their sponsors too have to be prosecuted for trying to subvert due process.