Let's unite in demanding accountability from EACC

This week, one Josephine Kabura released detailed claims in an affidavit linking former Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru to the NYS scandal.

The merits of the affidavit will be decided in court but the broader implications for public perception cannot be overlooked.

With a little hindsight on events leading up to the 2007-2008 crisis, Kenyans need to worry, and rightfully so. Broadly speaking, the affidavit raises serious questions about key institutions Kenyans have laboured to re-build over the last half a decade.

Earlier, an affidavit that put Justice Philip Tunoi on his defence cast aspersions on the Supreme Court and the Judiciary at large. Now the affidavit by Ms Kabura has roped in the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and the investigatory agencies of the national government such as the police.

Most significantly though, the EACC wrote a letter dated February 7, 2016, purporting to clear Ms Waiguru of any wrongdoing regarding the NYS scam. Kenyans were quick to ask why the former CS was being “cleared” by the EACC when she had never been named as a person of interest or suspect to begin with.

When the scandal broke, the EACC had then named Waiguru as a witness, having claimed to be a whistle blower who brought the scam to light.

Upon the surfacing of Kabura’s affidavit, the EACC hastily beat a retreat to “re-open” investigations into the whole saga. This was an interesting development, considering that despite being a person of interest from the word go, the EACC had never seen the need to interrogate Ms Kabura on her role in the scam, despite recommending her prosecution by the ODPP.

As most Kenyans will remember, the lack of accountability from key institutions was a key driver of the total lack of confidence in those institutions in the lead up to the 2007-2008 crisis.

We must unite in demanding accountability from the EACC and all investigatory agencies involved in this mess.

{Ramoto Osore, Nairobi}

A commission of inquiry would be better to unravel the truth in the Sh791 million NYS scam.

There are those who thought that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga did not know what he was saying when he, like a “mad man” kept on saying that all was not well at NYS.

President Uhuru Kenyatta weighed in and reassured us that there was no problem and that we ought to sleep soundly for he was on top of things.

Maybe the President thought that the former premier was just being the garrulous politician he probably deems him to be.

Now, the EACC is telling us Waiguru will become a person of interest. When shevisited their offices last year, she apparently never became a person of interest. It turns out then that Kenyan sleuths are cut from a very poor quality cloth.

This NYS scandal should be handled by the President forming a commission of inquiry so that a few people can be made to sweat as they labour to cleanse their names.

Should it turn out that the courts will ably handle the matter, so be it. But my only fear is that the well-paid advocates of Nairobi will throw a spanner in the works and derail the process on technicalities.

{Githuku Mungai, Nairobi}