E-Clips:- Business Pictorial - Why We Should Form Judicial Of Inquiry On Anglo Leasing

FOR Kenyans to know who the monster called Anglo Leasing is, the president should set up a judicial inquiry to investigate, expose and dismantle it.

For years, Goldenberg scandal proved intractable because it was a government scandal and the guilty, state could not investigate, expose and dismantle itself. It took a new government to do anything about Goldenberg.

In investigating Anglo Leasing, very ,little information is forthcoming from government officers who initiated the project and contract for which the government paid 2.7 billion shillings. Although the money is being refunded, the monster remains veiled. Yet ,Anglo Leasing is real not a phantom.

Public officers, including ministers, have been doing business with Anglo Leasing under both Moi and Kibaki regimes. Under Kanu and Moi, the public was told nothing about Anglo Leasing. Under Kibaki, public officers are telling the public very little. When ministers and public officers who conceived and developed projects and signed contracts with Anglo Leasing refuse to give information about the company, they make Anglo Leasing a government scandal.

When government officers refuse to talk and create the false impression that the government can possibly do business with a company they know nothing about, inevitably their silence is hound to implicate the government and the longer the silence lasts and Anglo Leasing remains unraveled, the sooner political detractors accuse the president or those close to, him of protecting or aiding and abetting the guilty.

Already people have began to see Anglo Leasing the way they see Goldenberg, and detractors of government have began to claim Anglo Leasing is a Kibaki scandal as Goldenberg was a Moi scandal. To dispel this most unfortunate perception, the president must take Anglo Leasing by the horns as he has on Goldenberg.

To protect his office and the government from the Anglo Leasing scandal, the president must act now. I ask the Kibaki to act because while the guilty part of government may refuse to talk while the executive perpetrating this scandal may refuse to divulge what they know to, the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. I do not see involved government officers refusing to give the president information about Anglo Leasing.

After all, the buck of guilt will stop at the president and it is his government not theirs that the scandal will destroy.

To get to the bottom of Anglo Leasing before too much harm is done, the president should immediately summon all ministers, public officers - sacked or not sacked - and all so-called local agents of Anglo Leasing like Jimmy Wanjigi and Deepac Kamani to State House to tell him the whole truth about Anglo Leasing.

If they refuse to talk, the president should sack and hand them over to the CID and courts for prosecution. If they talk, the president should set up a judicial commission with court powers and hand over further investigations of the scandal to it.

The president should use a Judicial Commission for further investigations because any institution like Public Accounts Committee without powers to stop witnesses lying or withholding information from it cannot, get the truth about Anglo Leasing on a voluntary basis.

Once the Judicial Commission is established, all public officers including ministers who have had anything to do with Anglo Leasing must tell everything they know to it or face charges of obstructing justice.

Before they appear before the Judicial Commission, the president must suspend all suspect public officers and ministers that can sit on relevant evidence.

When their innocence is established. they should reinstated. By the way, this treatment should not confined to Anglo Leasing alone but to all scandals corruption in the government.

For thoroughness, the Judicial Commission must suspect everyone in the radius of the concern office of the vice-president and ministry of home affairs office of the president, ministry of finance, the A-G and government information technology services (GIT).

Learning from Goldenberg where the se and daughters of former president Moi were part of the grand scam, President Kibaki should not spare even those who are close to him from suspicion and investigations. The lesson of Goldenberg is that no place is too high or sacred for the tentacles corruption to reach.

Finally, the Judicial Commission should not just look for guilty individuals. It must look for cartels of corruption to smash and dismantle. All corruption stems from them. The hydra called Anglo Leasing may have lost a head when Kanu fell. It grew one as soon as Narc government came to power. Kibaki government cannot inherit cartels of corruption and expect not to be corrupt.

If a part of Kenya government is uninfected by Anglo Leasing, it must tell the truth and excise the sick part from the government. As the Bible says: It is better to lose sick arm or eye than the whole body.