E-Clips:- Business Pictorial - How A Doctored Speech Nearly Moved PS From State House

President Kibaki may have read a government reshuffle speech which had been doctored without his knowledge in the first major changes of the Narc regime, the Nation has learnt. As a result he controversially shifted anti-corruption czar John Githongo from State House to the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and then reversed the decision in two days in the Government changes announced on June 30, 2004. Investigations into the dramatic events surrounding Mr Kibakis first shake-up, as his government was reeling from a bad press caused by the Anglo Leasing scandals, show that the Cabinet changes could have been manipulated to thwart the Presidents steadfast support for investigations into grand corruption in Narc.

Among the changes announced by Mr Kibaki in a live television broadcast that afternoon was the appointment of four new ministers and assistant ministers. Right at the bottom of the list was the line that Mr Githongo would be one of two new permanent secretaries in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. US ambassador William Bellamy was among those who publicly protested against the decision, questioning the Kibaki governments commitment to reforms.

He was joined by European diplomats, civil society and the public, who made the point that removing the anti-corruption czar from State House, where he reported directly to the President, down-graded the fight against graft. Now the Nation has pieced together the dramatic events surrounding that shake-up from interviews with politicians and former State House workers and from Mr Githongo himself. The graft czars return to State House was announced on Friday July 2, 2004, a day after the release of the new Cabinet list by the Presidential Press Service. People close to Mr Kibakis inner circle say the President seemed openly surprised that, a day after the reshuffle, Mr Githongo was preparing to move out of State House and that his staff were packing to join the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, headed by Mr Kiraitu Murungi.

The changes coincided with resistance among key government figures to investigations into Anglo Leasing-type contracts, which some of them claimed in private conversation could finance Narc elections and the impending Constitutional referendum. Mr Githongo himself recalls that when he heard of his removal from State House to Mr Murungis ministry, it only confirmed rumours which had been in the air for close to two weeks. The Nation contacted him in Oxford, Britain, where he is senior fellow at St Anthonys College, and put to him some of the theories advanced by his old colleagues and politician friends about the events of that week.

He confirmed that the reshuffle came at the end of an eventful three weeks in which he had, among other things, established from the British authorities that Anglo Leasing and Finance Company – the company given two contracts worth Sh7 billion by Kenya, and partly serviced by the Narc government – did not exist in Britain and was most likely a phantom. He had then written to the Central Bank on June 3 to stop all payments to the firm and reached the governor just in time to block a Sh300 million transfer to the shadowy contractors. Within a month from May 17, a total of Sh990 million which had been paid to the Anglo Leasing company was mysteriously returned to the treasury.

Mr Githongo, about this time, received a warning from an elderly politician about the dangers of undermining the activities of corrupt individuals around the President, and an appeal to discontinue investigations into Anglo Leasing and the Kenya Navy ship. It was also the period when lawyer Fred Ojiambo, a senior partner in the major law firm of Kaplan and Stratton, was arrested by KACC officers seeking to know the identity of his clients, the people behind the French security firm subcontracted by Anglo Leasing and Finance, who had instructed him to put out newspaper notices replying to questions raised about the Sh2.7 billion passports deal. Mr David Mwiraria was one of several ministers who protested against Mr Ojiambos arrest – a move criticised by the legal fraternity as threatening the sanctity of lawyer-client relationship.

Newspaper records show that it was in the run-up to the Cabinet reshuffle, also, that news emerged that Mr Mwiraria had set aside Sh222,530,000 to be paid to Anglo Leasing for the CID laboratories which had never been built – in a contract held by a finance company which did not exist. This was also the period when, one after the other, firms linked to Anglo Leasing mysteriously returned a total of Sh4.7 million to the Government as investigators dug relentlessly into the fraud. Two days after the Cabinet changes, a one line statement from the Presidential Press Service announced that Mr Githongo had been restored to his position as the Presidents advisor on anti-corruption, and would still be based at State House.

According to evidence available to the Nation, Mr Kibaki had been heard to express surprise that Mr Githongo had been removed from State House to another ministry although television had shown him reading out the reshuffle list to Kenyans. He invited Mr Githongo to a meeting at State House on Saturday, a day after the reversal had been announced, and as the din of protests from anti-corruption voices was still reverberating in the Press. The former PS refuses to discuss the content of his discussion with the President, except that the Head of State "assured me I had never been transferred". Did someone insert Mr Githongos name into the Presidents speech without the Head of States knowledge to stem the wave of anti-corruption investigations sweeping the Anglo Leasing stables?