Henry Rotich arraigned in court as rumors say Raphael Tuju to take his place
Earlier today Henry Rotich and 27 others were arraigned in court following the Arror and Kimwarer Dam Scandals. The 28 individuals are accused of various criminal charges including conspiracy to defraud the government, failure to comply with procedures and guidelines to procurement standards, engaging in projects without prior planning, abuse of office and other criminal offences. As CS faces criminal charges, rumours have come up that the government is already prepping Raphael Tuju to take over at the helm of treasury as the interim Treasurer.
Raphael Tuju is the secretary general for the ruling party Jubilee Party and was appointed by the President as a cabinet secretary though without any portfolio. Since Raphael Tuju is a cabinet secretary without any portfolio he is likely to be the one filling the position of the CS for Treasury. The government that is the office of the president is supposed to appoint an interim CS for Treasury before it embarks on its search for a permanent CS. This will be determined by the court findings though even if the court is unable to determine the case due to political pressure that usually surrounds such cases he might resign by himself. As per now the ministry for treasury is considered vacant.
The Kimwarer and Arror Dam Scandal first hit the headlines in September 2018 then was followed to February, June and now today 22nd July 2019. The arrests and arraignment in court of the suspects come nearly a year since the DPPs office started its investigations. Some few weeks back Mr Haji’s team and officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations led by Mr George Kinoti made visits outside the country. They travelled to Italy and Dubai to pursue leads in the Arror and Kimwarer Dam Scandal where they met with the Italian Government-owned insurer, Service Assicurativi Del Comercio Estero (SACE). SACE was paid Ksh 11.1 billion as insurance premium for a loan to build the two dams. These visits to these countries are what I think made the DPP Noordin Haji to order the arrest of these suspects.
In regards to the statements made by the DPP what struck me was when he said that the government officials flouted all procurement roles and abused their oath of office to ensure ‘the scheme went through’. What you would ask yourself is what scheme? The transaction agreement signed by the companies that were to provide the service to the construction of the two dams was to cost Ksh46 billion. Now here is the scheme the National Treasury went ahead and re-negotiate a facility that would increase the cost to Ksh 63 billion that’s an increase of up to Ksh17 billion. This reminded me of the plans made by the National Land Commission to exaggerate the land appreciation rate for compensation to individuals who were paving way for SGR construction. To make matters a little bit interesting, the contract negotiations was done in dollars but by the time it was being paid it was paid in Euros. This means that the value also exorbitantly increased since the Euro exchange value in Kenya is higher than the dollar.
In addition the treasury was to pay the Ksh 11.1 billion interest up front but they did not have the money. So they went ahead and borrowed the money paid the company for a job that had not yet started and plans for its commencement was nowhere to be seen. So you would ask yourself how can this very high level of corruption run in a country and expect it to grow. The CS for treasury has run out of ideas on how to manage huge debt burden and budget deficit in the country, this explains it all. We wait for their prosecution and hope that justice will be for the first time administered.