NASA links envoys to business deals, wants them reprimanded for partisanship

National Super Alliance leaders are now claiming that foreign envoys' remarks that they should recognise Uhuru Kenyatta as the legitimate president are prompted by commercial interests.

The leaders linked the military aircraft purchase and the tender for the construction of the second Nairobi-Mombasa highway to an American firm, adding that the deals could have been made to get support from the Jubilee administration.

Although the US State agency has declared the controversial Sh43 billion ($418 million) combat aircraft order by the Kenyan military as clean, Congressman Ted Budd, a leading critic of the deal, pledged to continue monitoring the sale, which is also being reviewed by a US Congress committee that has yet to report its findings.

Congress approved the weapons purchase earlier last year following an affirmative State Department assessment of the deal.

Speaking yesterday at NASA's Capitol Hill office, Nairobi, MPs Tom Kajwang (Ruaraka), Simba Arati (Dagoretti North), and Godfrey Osotsi (Nominated) accused the envoys of backing the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) even when it had stated it could not guarantee free, fair, and credible polls.

And now they want the countries of origin of the envoys to reprimand them for allegedly misleading their states and for remaining partisan in Kenyan politics.

“Kenyans will recall that these same envoys stood by the electoral commission even when it was glaringly obvious that the IEBC was a rogue institution. Instead of piling pressure on the IEBC to comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court, they issued statements expressing confidence in the IEBC,” reads the statement.

The US embassy, however, denied the claims.

"NASA's claim that the US and Ambassador Godec support Jubilee in exchange for a military aircraft tender or the Nairobi-Mombasa highway contract is absolutely and completely false," said Fiona Evans, the embassy's spokesperson.