Business as usual in Nairobi 3.0
The January 22nd Sunday Nation leads with a story ( free subscription ) about an apparent conspiracy within the government to raise money for political and personal ends through a company named Anglo-Leasing and other similar organizations owned by political figures that were to be awarded or were indeed awarded lucrative over-priced public contracts that could then be skimmed for profit.
The article however does not seem to show much in the way of evidence to back up these assertations. Much of what the article alludes to as being evidence seems to consist of anecdotes and third hand information with very little reference to documentary or forensic evidence.
Being a Kenyan and having seen first hand what Kenyan leaders are capable of doing to their country and people, I do not doubt for a second that the content of these stories is true. However, being a pragmatist who belives in the rule of law, I think it is wrong to make judgements based on evidence that is neither compelling nor convincing to the point of leaving no doubt. I will wait to see how this develops. But I will not hold my breadth thinking that this will be the death knell to this kind of behaviour from Kenya’s leaders.
Edit: Sunday January 22nd 2006 9:40pm
I got some more confirmation about this from this article in the Financial Times. There is however still no substantive material quoting the root source of these allegations which is apparently a report that John Githongo presented to President Kibaki while he was still working for the NARC governement in 2004/ early 2005 as the Secretary for Governance and Ethics. The high notes from the article:
A senior [Kenya Anti-Corruption] commission official told the FT the body planned to question Moody Awori, vice-president, David Mwiraria, finance minister, Kiraitu Murungi, energy minister, and Chris Murungaru, former transport minister, “at the earliest opportunity” in connection with the Anglo Leasing scandal.
Note that this is not the same as saying that these people are implicated, just that they are “persons on interest”.
“By the beginning of August 2004, I had confirmed that, during our tenure in government, we had signed about $277.7m worth of contracts of the Anglo Leasing kind,” Mr Githongo was quoted as saying in the summary of the dossier.
Is it just me who thinks that these are stupefying amounts of money that we as a country should be taking much more seriously? For purposes of comparison, it takes about $1m to build a mile of 8-lane highway meaning that this money could potentially have built the country a 4 lane highway from Mombasa to Kisumu.
Yet another edit: January 25th 2006 10:30am
The Daily Nation of January 23rd 2006 includes this article that specifically details the roles of various ministers and real/phantom companies in this scandal. The article now references an interview with John Githongo on January 22nd 2006 and quotes a report that he submitted to the Office of the President of the Republic of Kenya early last year when he was still Secretary for Ethics and Governance.
There is apparently another side scandal going on where the Kenya Navy was to purchase a ship from a company called EuroMarine associated with a Mr Anula Perera who is already a target of Kenyan anti-corruption investigators. This ship deal was supervised by the office of Mr Chris Murungaru’s as part of his docket at his former position in the Office of the President.
This Daily Nation article (free subscription ) of 25th January 2005 now indicates that atleast Kshs 900 million was returned to the Kenyan Government by ( agents of ) the Kamani family which seems to be very deeply associated with Anglo Leasing.
Just found out that mentalacrobatics called atleast one part of this more than one year ago in this post where he talks about John Githongo and his walking away from the whole mess back in the spring of 2005.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 21, 2006 at 11:56 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can also leave a response or trackback from your own site.
4 Responses to “Business as usual in Nairobi 3.0”
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Afro says:
January 23, 2006, 3:24 pm -
Open Blog: KenyaUnlimited » Blogosphere roundup says:
January 24, 2006, 8:30 pm[...] The week also began with the news that a report by Kenya’s former anti corruption chief was published. John Githongo stepped down a year ago; he had been investigating corruption, including the Anglo Leasing Scandal. Ntwiga has a clear rundown of this in the post“Business as usual in nairobi 3.o”. Mental acrobatics in an impassioned post takes issue with characterisation of John Githongo as a dissapointment, pointing out that “… he stood up, laid down his conditions and took a job that most of us would have ran away from like we were being chased by Conjestina Achieng and actually left with his integrity and his neck in check. We complain and complain about the political elite being one and the same. Orange, Banana, KANU, DP, LDP all the same. And here is a man who was invited into the top tier of that political elite and refused to be turned. In short the kind of man we have been calling for and instead of lauding him, we label him a coward” [...]
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Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Kenyan Sphere Roundup says:
January 24, 2006, 9:28 pm[...] The week also began with the news that a report by Kenya’s former anti corruption chief was published. John Githongo stepped down a year ago; he had been investigating corruption, including the Anglo Leasing Scandal. Ntwiga has a clear rundown of this in the post“Business as usual in nairobi 3.o”. Mental acrobatics in an impassioned post takes issue with characterisation of John Githongo as a dissapointment, pointing out that “… he stood up, laid down his conditions and took a job that most of us would have ran away from like we were being chased by Conjestina Achieng and actually left with his integrity and his neck in check. We complain and complain about the political elite being one and the same. Orange, Banana, KANU, DP, LDP all the same. And here is a man who was invited into the top tier of that political elite and refused to be turned. In short the kind of man we have been calling for and instead of lauding him, we label him a coward” [...]
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Steve Ntwiga Mugiri » Blog Archive » feed the addiction: links. says:
May 22, 2006, 10:22 pm[...] ( edit ) I just realized that the Kamanis whom I have blogged about a couple of times in my “Business as usual series” and are at the core of the Githongo scandal are on the list. [...]
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Good points…esp about the roads! those amounts are definitely stupefying. It irks me how news outlets kinda tip toe around it (I understand that there are legal considerations)but wouldnt it be good if they just said so and so and so took the cash. oh well, here is hoping in due time the information comes out- fully.