E-Clips:- Business Pictorial - Githongo - It Is Time Kenyans Held Their Government To Account

Exiled former permanent secretary for Governance and Ethic Mr John Githongo yesterday dismissed the Kibaki government as incapable of fighting high-level corruption.

“We have now reached the point where for the current administration to fight high level corruption seriously would be to commit political suicide. Complicity in the transactions collectively known as Anglo-Leasing goes to the very top, so political accountability is unlikely,” he told the Sunday Nation from Oxford, UK, where he lives.

Responding to the clearing of Energy minister Kiraitu of wrongdoing in covering up the multi-billion Anglo Leasing series of scandals, Mr Githongo reiterated that neither the director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission Mr Aaron Ringera nor the Government of President Kibaki had shown serious interest in pursuing the perpetrators of the scandal. He threatened to spill more beans on the attempted cover-up.

“I now consider it my personal responsibility to seek and expose further details of this attempted cover-up. It is time we the Kenyan people held our Government to account,” he said in a statement.

“Soon enough, Kenyans will establish without a shadow of a doubt, the truth in my assertions relating to Anglo Leasing and other similar attempts to loot our country’s wealth by this government.

“My personal prayer, and the foundation of my steadfast conviction, is that the time has come when every Kenyan will treasure this nation’s wealth and resources as his or her legacy and not a gravy train to loot. At such a time, Kenyans will not be forced into the kind of situations that I have faced over the last close to two years.”

The Anglo Leasing scandal was real, he said, and implicated the Vice President and other senior members of the Government adding that the only action the Government had taken was to show that it was determined to try to erase this crime from the memory of Kenyans by using public money to issue clearance statements.

This, he said, started with Mr Francis Muthaura in June 2004, and culminated with KACC’s clearance through a Gazette Notice. Nothing in the Gazette Notice changes the facts.

Said Mr Githongo: “It is indisputable that on September 8, 2003, the Vice President Mr Moody Awori approved the passport deal. On October 2, 2003 then Minister for Finance Mr David Mwiraria did the same. The Attorney General approved both contracts, and now purports to close the files on the cover-up. When are they, and their appointing authority, the President, going to take personal responsibility for approving contracts with a non-existent company?”

Mr Githongo dismissed the reasons given by Mr Ringera in giving Mr Murungi a clean bill of health, saying as the person mandated to advise the President on matters relating to governance and corruption, he used Government resources including officers of the KACC to investigate corruption.

Indeed, Mr Githongo pointed out, one of them, Mr Hussein Were — who has since been fired by Mr Ringera — had publicly stated that Mr Ringera and others in the KACC interfered with those investigations.

“That I am not an investigator does not wipe away the fact that billions of taxpayers’ money were literally given away by senior Government officials, including the (then) minister for Finance and the Vice President,” he said.

He reiterated that it was sad President Kibaki had done nothing to end the charade, which he had informed him of more than two years ago.

Mr Githongo further said audiotapes made available to Mr Ringera and Leader of the Official Opposition Uhuru Kenyatta when the Public Accounts Committee which he chairs was investigating the scandal.

He quoted the PAC report as saying that that it “accepts the evidence about the discussion between Mr John Githongo and Hon Murungi as authentic which is further supported by tape recorded conversations between them.”

“The committee further finds that, based on Mr Murungi’s various discussions, the principals behind Anglo Leasing projects were probably a front for persons within President Kibaki’s administration,” the committee further observed.

Said Mr Githongo: “I am not persuaded that Justice Ringera did not deliberately conceal or erase the recordings of my statement to him, in view of the fact that he told me to my face, in the presence of Prof Mutua and Hussein Were that those responsible for Anglo Leasing would never be prosecuted before the 2007 election, if ever."

The Anglo Leasing scandal concerns 18 security related procurement contracts in which the immediate past and present regimes, committed to pay over Sh50 billion to non-existent companies; or to companies that overpriced the services they purportedly delivered to the Government.

The range of services run the gamut from telecommunications system, security installations, vehicles, documents security systems and physical facilities such as the Nexus Communication Facility on Karen Road, Nairobi. The most senior public officers, including the Vice President, Ministers and Permanent Secretaries have been accused of being either perpetrators or taking part in the cover-up.

Three special audits, into the two best known contracts — the passport and forensic laboratory — by the Parliamentary Accounts Committee, the National Audit Office, in 2004 and 2006, made findings different from the conclusions of KACC.