By Oduor Ong'wen
Yesterday, leaders from six counties of the former Nyanza Province organized a leaders’ meeting at Kisii Sports Club to interrogate together contents of the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report that was launched at the end of last year. The meeting brought together close to 4,000 leaders drawn from grassroots and comprising religious leaders, CBOs, women groups, small business associations, elected leaders (MCAs, MPs and governors), fisherfolk, trade unions.
The meeting invited experts that took the delegates through the key recommendations contained in the 156-page report after which the delegates gave their feedback based on the presentations. Thereafter, each delegate was given a hard copy of the report to take home and read. Resolutions were then adopted of which in my view the most important was that the process of public participation and discussion of the report should be taken to ward level.
Even before the delegates arrived in Kisii, the gathering was already condemned as unnecessary and a drain of public funds. None other than our Deputy President William Ruto led the chorus of condemnation. I find this to be a public display of either hypocrisy or confusion. But I doubt whether Ruto is confused. It’s not easy to confuse a PhD holder. So, the former is more likely and this is why:
During the national launch at the Bomas of Kenya on November 27, 2019 speaker after speaker, Ruto included, called for the document to be taken to the grassroots so that Wanjiku may read for self and give feedback. Indeed, leaders allied to the DP were the first to organize the first consultative meeting on the report at the Great Rift Valley Lodge. It was highly publicized but nobody faulted it. Was that consultation fine because the DP’s brigade did it or because it excluded grassroots leaders?
The most hilarious observation from persons faulting the public consultations launched by some of our governors is that it was a waste of public funds. Did I hear right? Deputy PORK William Ruto a defender of public funds? Am I the only visitor in Jerusalem? May I try to walk down the memory lane?
On October 18, 2016, President Uhuru Kenyatta convened at the State House what he dubbed ‘Anti-Corruption’ Summit. During the event, the Head of State lamented that he was unable to deal with rent seeking, which has become the hallmark of his administration. The image of the Commander-in-Chief of our defence forces, raising his arms in surrender and saying, nifanye nini jameni (what do you expect me to do) endures. This was an explicit admission by President Kenyatta that corruption was rife but he lacked the mechanism and support to deal with the vice.
When they emerged on the steps of Harambee House on March 9, 2018 to famously shake hands with Raila Odinga, corruption was one of the nine issues they committed to confronting head-on. Since then, we have seen reinvigoration of graft fighting agencies, high profile arrests and attempts at asset recovery. We are yet to see big shots serving jail terms, but we have a rule of law that would rather be faulted on account of granting suspects full rights than for violation of the same. Graft suspects have fully used and abused the loopholes provided by our celebrated Bill of Rights to delay cases; interfere with evidence and witnesses; and be detained in hospitals as opposed to gazetted custodial facilities.
It has become clear that the President never attempted to slay the dragon of corruption in his first term because his principal partner Ruto was unwilling. The DP has been mentioned severally in suspected corrupt deals. Apparently after the “Handshake,” President Kenyatta discovered there is something he can do about corruption and is acting.
In the fifty-six months of Jubilee’s first administration, Kenya witnessed at least 29 cases of mega scams involving more than Sh. 2.6 Trillion. This translates into roughly one major case of corruption every two months. Herein below, we recall some outstanding cases.
Number One is the scam of “Hustler Jet.” Hardly a fortnight after the Jubilee Administration was sworn into office, the new regime was entangled in an irregular expenditure of Sh. 100 million where the Deputy President had hired a private jet to visit four African countries. Mission? To lobby African Heads of State to support President Kenyatta and him in dealing with cases of crimes against humanity that they then faced at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. It is instructive that less than two months earlier, then candidate Kenyatta had said that the cases were “personal challenges.”
Number two, it is in the public domain that Sh. 21 Billion of public funds was misappropriated in the scam involving the proposed construction of two dams Arror and Kimwarer in Elgeyo Marakwet counties. What did Dr. Ruto say about it? It was “only” Sh. 7 Billion. Among the most interesting payments were Sh. 15 million paid to New Italico Limited to supply bed sheets, pillows, towels, duvets and other beddings. Of what relevance were these items in dam construction? It’s alleged that the items were delivered in Mombasa yet the dams’ locations are almost one thousand kilometres. Sh. 11 Billion is said to have been paid upfront for insurance yet government guarantee would cost zero shillings. Other questionable payments included Sh. 10.2 million to Tusker Mattresses for supply of foodstuffs even before the project started; Sh. 6.2 million to Long Rock Engineering Limited to supply furniture and transport services; Sh. 100 million to CMC Di Rivenna Kenya for unspecified services; and Sh. 19.4 million paid to Highland Valuers for relocation and valuation services even though the land where the projects were to take place is still occupied. To Ruto, these payments and others were not a waste of public funds.
Number three is the much-hyped Laptop Project for primary school learners. The Jubilee Alliance was to provide laptops to all children enrolling in Class One by January 2014. Seven years later, the project is yet to be implemented as it has been dogged by one scam after another in the tendering process. The tender was nullified by the high court because ‘tenderpreneurs’ inflated it by Sh.1.4 Billion from Sh. 24.6 Billion to Sh. 26 billion.
Conflict had arisen between tendering companies and the Ministry of Education following accusations that the ministry gave top listing to Olive Telecommunications, an Indian company. Competitors Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Haier Electrical Appliances of China accused Olive of not meeting the basic tendering requirements as stipulated by national regulations. It emerged that Olive is not a device manufacturer but uses Chinese subcontractors to manufacture their Olive-branded electronic devices, contrary to the tender project's OEM (original equipment manufacturer) requirements. Kenyan tender regulations required that only OEMs could participate in the laptop bidding, according to media reports. This rule would effectively rule out Olive from participating in the tender since it could not prove it was an OEM. The Kenyan government decided to add this tender rule after it emerged that brokers had participated in the first round of tendering, which led to an inflation of proposed costs. Despite this requirement however, Olive was assigned the top position, as it allegedly pitched the lowest bid of KSh. 22 billion (US$261 million) compared to the Ksh 23 billion bid by HP and 24 billion shilling bid by Haier. Both HP and Haier had offered to establish Kenyan assembling plants for the laptops. But Olive would not be manufacturing the devices locally, according to reports.
Fourth was the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project. This was one of the flagship projects of the Grand Coalition Government under Vision 2030. The exiting Kibaki-Odinga government had processed tenders for the project and awarded China Roads and Bridges Corporation (CRBC) at Sh. 220 Billion for the Mombasa- Nairobi leg. When it came to power, the Jubilee Government cancelled this tender, then awarded it to the same company, through single sourcing, at Sh. 334 Billion (Sh. 114 Billion more). It was later inflated to Sh. 1.3 trillion (US$ 13.8 Billion) for the entire course. The subcontracting for civil works immediately went to a local company APEC whose directors remain unknown.
At number five, we have the Eurobond. In his report of the Special Audit of Eurobond in 2016, the then Auditor General Edward Ouko observed that his office was unable ascertain how Sh. 215 Billion Eurobond proceeds were utilised.
Scam number six was a Sh. 63.5 Billion terminal tendering. The project, located at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), was designed eight years ago to make Nairobi a premier aviation hub for Africa. The contract, signed in 2013 between the Authority and Anhui Construction Engineering Group, was a variation of the original contract signed in 2011, with the introduction of a new inflated provision for Sh9.5 Billion. The first contract signed in December 2011 between KAA and the company was for an agreed sum of Sh54 billion (US dollars 653.7 million).
The government later abandoned the project in April 2016, exposing the country to a loss of Sh. 20 Billion. This Sh. 20 Billion has been used by to build the towering Global Trade Centre (GTC) along Chiromo Road. If Ruto is so concerned about prudent use of public funds, he should have been the first to raise alarm of such a colossal sum being siphoned from the Kenyan tax payer to fund a private enterprise.
Other public heists include the National Youth Service (NYS), which paid out millions to a company five months before it was registered; the Kenya Pipeline scams, Kenya Power; and the Geothermal Development Corporation mega scandals among others. We know whose surrogates head these parastatals.
Lastly, I still recall a scene reminiscent of the SOWETO massacre in Johannesburg, South Africa on 16th June 1976, where Kenyan police tear-gassed, battoned and mercilessly kicked Langata Road Primary schoolchildren protesting against a move by a hotel owned by Ruto to seize their playground and turn it into a car park. After a long circus of denials and name-calling, Ruto admitted to both his ownership of Weston Hotel, and the fact that it is built on a piece of land acquired fraudulently from Kenya Civil Aviation Authority.
Governors have not hidden the fact that the money used for these consultations have come from county government coffers. Ruto chairs the Intergovernmental Budget and Economic Council (IBEC) and is aware that each county government appropriates money for public participation. He has just panicked because the contents of the BBI report are being taken to the ordinary citizen thereby denying him and his troops opportunity for disinformation.
Indeed, panic is real.
January 11, 2020
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