Auditor General report has uneartheddisturbing inconsistencies within the office of AG Githu Muigai. The Office of the Attorney-General and Department of Justice had a total budget for the year 2014/2015 of Kshs.3,482,018,843 for both recurrent and development expenditure. However, the Office utilised a total of Kshs.3,002,775,301 resulting in an underutilization of Kshs.479,243,542 (13%) of the total budget.
Further, the office did not receive Kshs.801,509,542 (21%) of the planned exchequer releases to implement its annual objectives.
Examination of the recurrent account bank reconciliation statement revealed payments in cash book not in bank statement of Kshs.104,619,219.36 out of which Kshs.35,744,293 have been long outstanding and also payments in bank statement but not in cash book amounting to Kshs.53,132,463 out of which Kshs.45,162,116 have been long outstanding. Although the AG Office has explained that they have adjusted their cash book with Kshs.33,127,388 and Kshs.33,078,871 respectively and further explained that most of the payments in bank and not in cash book were pay advances that were paid by Central Bank of Kenya on their behalf to foreign banks, no analysis was provided to support and justify the adjustments. In the circumstances, the cash and cash equivalents balance of Kshs.93,871,592 30 could not be confirmed by the OAG.
The statement of receipts and payments reflects proceeds from domestic and foreign grants of Kshs.300,000,000 as at 30 June 2015. It was alleged that the donor agencies paid the funds directly to recipient projects/programs and the expenditure incurred thereon in form of Research, Studies, Project Preparation, Design and Supervision. However, no supporting documentation has been provided for audit review to confirm the amount received and spent by the Office of the Attorney-General and Department of Justice. Consequently, Auditor General notes thst it was not possible to confirm the accuracy and propriety of the revenue or expenditure of Kshs.300,000,000.
Further, Ouko highlighted weaknesses in the internal control systems of the AG office stating that there are no risk management policy in place during the year under review. No risk assessment was carried out to identify and address key areas of concern and document specific controls in response to identified risks – There is no evidence that management assessed the internal controls applicable to address any material weaknesses that could be inherent in the controls.
The report indicates, AG office has not produced operating manuals to guide key processes and controls for receipts from debtors/customers, payments to creditors, personnel, expenditure, assets and liabilities and investments. There was no operational plan for the year under review. Most systems of the Official Receiver are manual, the institution does not have an approved Information Technology (IT) strategic plan and security policy. The institution has no formal, documented and tested disaster recovery plan/emergency procedure in place, to guide on cases of emergency
Refer to the whistle blower report we published previously regarding the scandals at the East African Development Bank and the call to request the Director General Vivienne Yeda to step aside after 7 years of oppressive leadership at the Bank. Following the whistle Blowers dossier received by board members early June, Senior managers met with the Board members on the 15th July 2016 and were able to substantiate with evidence the details published about Vivienne Yeda, the Director General of EADB as true.
Despite the board members receiving collaborative evidence that what was written about Vivienne Yeda was the truth, Vivienne has been left to continue with her work as if nothing happened. More shocking details have emerged on how Vivienne Yeda has misappropriated the Bank funds in a number of ways as we shall explain in this article. Staff members are calling on the member states of the East African Development Bank including Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, to commission their respective auditor general’s offices to carry out an investigation on the actions of Vivienne Yeda and how she has squandered tax payer’s money. That she should be asked to step aside for the period of the investigations in order not to interfere with the investigations team. Despite the board members confirming the shocking revelations as true, they have done nothing to interdict her. You will know why no action has been taken in this article.
During the interview between the senior managers and the board members, the Directors were shocked to hear that staff never receive end of year bonuses even when the board has annually approved a budget of USD 65,000 annually for staff end of year bonuses. Vivienne has been drawing the entire USD 65,000 which ends up on her personal account. She normally channels such monies through the staff payroll which is managed by Deloitte to her personal account.
Such money is usually transferred to her account either at end of the year or beginning of the year. Investigations can be carried out at Deloitte to confirm the staff salary figures sent to them during these periods starting 2013/2014, 2014/2015 and 2014/2015. Staff members are still in shock that the Director General has been embezzling money meant for staff bonuses. Vivienne has also negotiated her salary increment with the board twice during her 7 years tenor at the helm of the Bank. The board approved both increments; one in the middle of her first five years and the second at the time when she was renewing her contract. Much as the board was shocked to learn that it’s only her who gets salary increments at the Bank.
The fact that she is the DG, Head of legal and Company secretary, she normally alters board minutes to indicate that he salary increment was to take effect one year back for the first increment and a couple of months back for the second increment. Looking at the staff payroll for the periods when her salary was increased, one would notice large sums of money which were channeled through the payroll to her account. Other such dubious payments have been taken out of the Bank to her account through the payroll. She uses the staff payroll to channel funds to her account because she knows the payroll is never scrutinized.
The former finance manager who resigned at the end of May this year was never allowed to look at the payroll because he would question such payments. We doubt that the board would approve bonuses and salary increments to only one person in the Bank. Red peppernews paper in Uganda and as per the whistle blower dozzier, informed you in their article of 13th July 2016 that staff don’t receive any form of motivation either through training and career enhancement or travel and exposure even when funds have been set aside for these purposes.
We confirm that unlike other previuos Director Generals, the Bank pays Vivienne both the profident fund, which she recieves annually and contributes towards her pension which she is supposed to receive when she leaves the services of the Bank. The annual provident fund payment is usually made directly to her account through the Bank’s SWIFT payment system and this appears in the general legder. The USD 65,000 mentioned above can not be her provident fund since it is paid out through the staff payroll. Towards the end of July 2016 even after the board had sat to discuss the whistle blowers report, she went a head to request HR to pay her pension through the end of July staff payroll. Pension is supposed to be paid when a staff member has left the services of the Bank.
But she wanted her pension paid out with the July salary. But after HR had consulted with the senior advisor to the DG, Mr. George Aaron, they declined to pay the pension to her because this would have been iregular. During last year, Vivienne requested finance department to pay her USD 175,000 calling it pension/provident fund in arrears which is fradulent. The finance department declined to pay the money to her account because she failed to provide clear documentation for the money. This needs to be investigated.
In 2014, the Bank was rated by AADFI as the best DFI in Africa.
This was after she had bribed the rating team to give her the top position. Much as one could say, this was good for the Bank’s image,it is not sustainable. The image of the Bank should be enhanced by improving gorvernance, systems, policies and structures in the Bank. At most, the rating agencies coud have been bribed when she is also doing much to improve the Bank. But this has not happened.
She has boosted of posting profits for the Bank, but this is all not true. A lot can be discovered in this area but we shall bring out on example when she has fradulently reported profits which is not real. The Bank is supposed to value all its assets annually and the valuation figures taken into consideration when reporting profits. The high the value of assets the higher the profits reports. Recently a firm was hired to value the Bank assets in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The firm carried out the valuatioin exercise in all the three countries and submitted the reports to the Bank. She was okay with the value of assets in Kenya and Uganda. Because the Bank’s assets in Tanzania returned a lower real market value than she had hoped for, she asked the firm to inflate the figures of the value of assets in Tanzania, but the firm refused. she instead hired another firm which re-valued the assets in Tanzania to give them a value of her choice.
If she had used the real market value as reported by the first firm, it would have reduced the amount of profits reported. But the fact that the second firm hired agreed to her demands, they reported a value which she wanted, and as thus, this helped her to report an increased amount of profits. The Bank money twice for the same service and the results of the assignment were compromised. In the June dossier, we reported that she reported a wrong Non-performing loans percentage to the board of 0.83% instead of 5% during the end of Feb 2016 boarding meeting held in Nairobi. This was to avoid reporting on some Kenyan projects like DARI, Abarderes and Benvar Estates which were non-performing.
Non-performing loans are supposed to be provided for and if the mentioned projects had been reported and provided for, they would erode most of the profits she was reporting to the board. These two examples show Vivienne has been reporting fraudulent profits to the board to give them the impression that the Bank is performing well, when its actually not performing that much and not growing at the same time. This is fraudulent and false reporting to the board and should be investigated and stopped. So many other lies have been told to the board. Believe it or not, this is not sustainable.
NEW YORK, NY – SEPTEMBER 22: Director General of East African Development Bank Vivienne Yeda speaks during the 30th Annual Awards Gala hosted by The Africa-America Institute at Gotham Hall on September 22, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for The African-American Institute)
During the board which sat on the 14th July 2016, Vivienne falsified the portfolio report on the number and amount of projects approved and disbursed between January to July 2016. She reported some of the projects which were approved and disbursed in Q4 of 2015 as projects which were approved and disbursed in 2016 to confuse the board members since the previous dozzier had reported that only two projects had been approved for the entire bank between Jan to June 2016. All these lies are to show the board that she is performing when in real sense there are huge issues within the Bank. This can be verified with the Portfolio management unit in Bank, the chief internal auditor and the finance manager.
Board members were also shocked to learn that renovation of the Head office building on plot 4 Nile avenue cost the Bank (and the tax payer of East Africa) USD 6.6 million. The board did not know that the cost had escalated to this level because she did not seek board approval for the entire sum in one go. She presented the renovations budgets to the board in piecemeal. We believe USD 6.6 million could have put up a brand new building the size of the EADB head office and more. Of concern is that the contractors and the project managers who implemented the renovations were single sourced and the contracts negotiated and approved by herself. She has deliberately refused to put in place a procurement committee and at the same time the bank does not have a procurement expert to support these very expensive procurement contracts. We request that an audit in the processes and procedures of procuring and negotiating the renovations contract be investigated.
Experts can be called in to value the cost of the renovations to confirm that the work actually cost USD 6.6 million and that there was value for tax payers money. The renovations have gone on since 2012 until todate. The fact that the implementation team comprised her friends (project managers and architects who were handpicked from Kenya using a single sourcing method to manage the project), we believe the value of the contracts was inflated so as to give her kickbacks.
The same project managers and architects have been building a hotel and apartments for her in one of the national parks in Kenya which has just been completed. The construction of her hotel and apartments progressed at the same time with the office renovations and it is believed that money for some of the inflated office renovation bills went to her hotel construction.
Another building that has been renovated by the Bank whose renovation costs, value for money and the procedures followed to procure the service providers are being challenged, is a block of apartments commonly referred to as “block 4” in Naguru. The cost of USD 6.6 million mentioned above does not include the renovation costs for this block of apartments. This should also be investigated.
Senior managers have been shocked to hear that the information they provided to the board members confirming the allegations, even after the board chairman had assured managers that they were protected and therefore should not fear to say the truth, has licked to Vivienne including which manager mentioned what. Managers wonder why the board went on to ask the senior managers to expose themselves by revealing the truth, if they knew they were not going to take any action.
The result of this has exposed some managers to harassment and threats from Vivienne and her machinery. Some of these managers have received threatening phone calls indicating that something bad will happen to them and their families if they don’t stop revealing information about Vivienne Yeda.
The first whistle blower report and the red pepper article of 13th July reported that 99% of all international travels at the Bank are undertaken by Vivienne Yeda alone.
An analysis carried on the costs associated with her travels between 2013 and to date reveal that she spends not less than USD 135,000 per year on her travel related costs alone. This is a lot of money and therefore value for this money needs to be investigated.
As per the whistle blowers reported published in red pepper on the 13th July 2016, Vivienne Yeda refused to hire staff to fill all key vacant positions in the Bank and therefore heavily relies on the use of very expensive consultants who have cost the Bank a lot of money with no value for money. The Bank has a legal department with no lawyers at all. She single handedly sourced an international law firm called “Eversheds” based in London who have been doing the day to day legal work at the Bank. This law firm has todate cost the Bank USD 1.2 million to do work which would have ordinarily been done by the staff members in the legal department.
These colossal sums have been spent without a formal contract between EADB and Eversheds, (Atleast no staff member has seen the contract and the terms of engagement including the finance department that is always forced to prepare payments for such expenses. Noformal procurement procedures were followed and most importantly there is not value for money for the work this law firm has been hired to do for the Bank. It also emerged that Vivienne Yeda’s daughter who has been pursuing her studies in the UK worked at this law firm, raising question marks on the possible conflict of interest in giving this law firm huge sums of money. The work of eversheds, the procurement process and value for money should also be investigated.
The Bank received grants worth over USD 3 million from AfDB, DEG and KfW for various capacity building activities at the Bank. That fact that the Bank does not have a procurement committee and a procurement specialist; it becomes questionable how these huge contracts have been selected and awarded. Though for some grants especially from AfDB, the AfDB team got involved in the procurement of consultants though she still wanted to be fraudulent about the process. The fact that Vivienne Yeda single handedly approves the final bidders, to whom these consultancy contracts are awarded, raises several question marks. Some of the contracts cost over USD 900,000 per single consultancy contract.
The fact that key staff positions at the Bank are vacant due to the fact that several senior staff members have resigned because they could not continue working under such conditions. The capacity building interventions will not benefit the Bank much. For the Bank of less than 70 staff members, about 44 staff have resigned since 2012 todate. The systems and policies/operating guidelines being introduced in the Bank don’t add much value when the key users are not in their positions. In a letter written by African Development Bank after an audit they carried out at EADB in April 2016.
The report was addressed to Vivienne Yeda and signed by the Manager Portfolio Management Division atAfDB. The letter reads in part as an example “despite AfDB having given EADB guidance on procurement process for a credit cycle management consultancy firm, to undertake a credit management cycle documentation consultancy assignment at the Bank, Vivienne Yeda’s choice of the consulting firm to be selected was a Kenyan firm charging over USD 800,000 almost three times the price of the next candidate who charged below 300,000”. In AfDB’s opinion after reviewing the technical proposals and credentials of the other firms, the other two consultancy firms that had applied for the consultancy work were also well qualified to deliver the consultancy based on the terms of reference provided. It is possible that these consultancy contracts are inflated and the consultancy firms selected end up giving hefty kick backs to Vivienne Yeda. Most of the contracts with consultants and other service provider have been determined in this manner.
The African Development Bank audit report about EADB further reads in part, we quote “the AfDB officers who carried out the audit noted that, there were several bleaches regarding operational limits in treasury, bleaches in procurement guidelines, and non-compliance of policy in relation to credit approval of some of the high value transactions’. The report further read that “Management committee is effectively made of only the Director General (Vivienne Yeda) which we believe does not conform to best practice and does not exhibit good corporate governance”. These revelations make any one wonder why audit firms like KPMG who carries out quarterly audits at the bank for hefty sums of money have not been able to flag these weaknesses.
The Bank has an internal audit department, but the fact that they have been very critical of how Vivienne conducts bank business (they have reported to the board several times despite the board not taking any serious actions), she chose to frustrate them by not bothering about their reports. She instead chose to duplicate their role by hiring KPMG to carry out quarterly audit reviews at the Bank. Despite the fact that KPMG’s reports indicate that there are no issues at all at the Bank, they have cost the Bank and the tax payers money USD 382,000. We believe she retained KPMG to cover up her loot and since KPMG is looked at as a credible audit firm, the board members would not question their reports but also dismiss the issues raised by the internal audit. The annual financial audit is carried out by PWC, much as we are surprised that they have also not been able to raise a red flag (not even noticing that lots of money is chanelled through Vivienne Yeda’s account through the payroll, among other flaws) of the appalling situation at the Bank.
Vivienne Apopo signing a deal
When the whistle blower report which red pepper published on the 13th July 2016 first came out, Vivienne Yeda hired KPMG Kenya to come and investigate the source of the whistle blower dossier. It was surprising to see that a firm of KPMG’s caliber could accept to investigate the origin of the report as opposed to investigating the facts contained in the report. We believe they have been compromised by money. KPMG came into the EADB offices on the night of 23rd June 2016 in the absence of staff members and hacked into computers of all staff members to try and find out who might have originated the dossier but also to try and delete some of the documents that might be incriminating to Ms. Yeda. The fact that they copied information from hard discs of all staff computers, it is evident that all bank information is now in the hands of those individuals who took the information under the directive of Vivienne Yeda. KPMG went ahead to isolate some managers who were interrogated on 4th July 2016 and their statements recorded to try and find the originator of the dossier. KPMG Kenya has issued an invoice for USD 22,000 to be paid by the Bank (without any engagement letter and terms of reference) for investigating the whistle blower. This is not acceptable. She has hired full times services of an ex-police detective (a one Egessa) to try and investigate staff in efforts to identify the person who originated the dossier. This police detective together with one of the law firms which the Bank uses regularly have helped her to file a complaint which she has taken to Interpol asking them to give her additional protection (in disguise that her life is in danger) but also to give her permission to get staff phone records and also tap staff phone conversations.
This is not acceptable. She has hired full times services of an ex-police detective (a one Egessa) to try and investigate staff in efforts to identify the person who originated the dossier. This police detective together with one of the law firms which the Bank uses regularly have helped her to file a complaint which she has taken to Interpol asking them to give her additional protection (in disguise that her life is in danger) but also to give her permission to get staff phone records and also tap staff phone conversations.
The ex-police detective moves around office with a tape recorder recording staff conversation.
The reason it is being proposed that each EADB member state should commission their auditor general’s office to investigate the massive abuse of office and misuse of tax payers money at the regional Bank is that, each member state (Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania) contribute USD 4.5 million annually as their capital contribution towards the lending activities of the Bank. In other words, Yeda has at her disposal USD 18 million contributed annually by the member states from tax payers money in the hope that the Bank would lend out the money to befitting projects to promote social economic development among the member states.Seeing how the board has chosen to protect someone who is using tax payer’s money in this manner, one wonders why the governments should not channel this money in other useful projects if the Bank cannot get good leadership to enhance the mandate of the Bank. EADB should have been much bigger and visible that it is today if the Board had agreed to change the top leadership at the Bank.
This article reveals some shocking details as to why, despite all the information out there concerning Yeda’s abuse of power and office, she has remained in her office intact and untouchable. The Board members received the whistle blower dossier at the beginning of June 2016 as confirmed by Mr. Muhakanizi during the red pepper interview leading to the publication of 13th July 2016. The same was also confirmed by the chairman of the board on the 15th July 2016 when meeting senior managers of the Bank.
Anyone reading this would have expected the board to have taken immediate action (asking Vivienne to step aside for investigations jointly commissioned by the Bank member states to take place) but this has not happened. Usually under such circumstances, the board would convene urgently to hear from both sides, which they did (board sat one and a half months after they received the report). The board would recommend to the Governing Council of the Bank which comprises of the Ministers of Finance of the Bank Member states who have the powers to sack the Director General according to the charter that governs the Bank. 75% of the Governing board members must vote to sack her if she is to be fired.
Two weeks after the board confirming the allegations, the Director General is still going on with her work at the Bank as usual, and renovations and hiring of consultants is still going on. This procedure should naturally not apply under situations where it is clear that Bank funds have been misappropriated? Is has emerged that the board has remained divided on whether they recommend to terminate her contract or not. As opposed to normal practices in other financial institutions, EADB Board members are allowed to borrow from their own Bank (purely against good corporate governance practices). As earlier reported by the whistle blower and published in the 13th July red pepper, EADB board members borrow hefty sums of money from the Bank to run their personal businesses. Much as Mr. Muhakanizi in his interview with red pepper denied any board member applying for any loans from the Bank, we confirm that, in 2014 the Bank approved a loan of USD 4 million to Mr. Muhakanizi through a real estatescompany called Reunion Estates Ltd. The Bank approved a loan of USD 500,000 for another board member from Kenya called Mr. Francis Karuiru through his company “Edron Communications Ltd’ based in Kenya. Because of the above, board members have been compromised and therefore don’t want to make a firm recommendation to terminate the services of the mighty Yeda.
This being tax payers money, we call upon Governments to take action. The Ministers also don’t get detailed information from board members (who are their permanent secretaries) regarding the affairs at the Bank because of their vested interests which is purely a conflict of interest.
We also report that the Bank, its staff and assets are protected under diplomatic immunity. This means that Yeda and the Bank cannot be sued in local courts of law. This could also explain why she also went against the laws of the EAC member states that protects whistle blowers setting clear procedures to be followed when a whistle blower report comes out. It’s because of this immunity that she has had easy access to Interpol to start investigating who the author of the dossier could be so that the author is punished instead of the accused. A cover letter forwarding the whistle blowers report to the IGG and requesting them to launch an investigation into the abuse of office is attached to this dozzier, but because of the Bank’s immunity, it seems the IGG’s office lacks the Mandate to investigate the Director General.
We believe the immunity status was among others aimed at protecting the Bank and the tax payer’s money. Right now, the Bank’s diplomatic immunity is being used to protect an individual who has abused tax payer’s money. The rights of staff members are being infringed upon the fact that their phone conversations are being tapped; their phone records have been printed and investigated. These staff members are innocent and suffering because one person has bribed her way into impunity.
The auditor General offices among the Bank member states are called upon to investigate the allegations so that Vivienne can account for her actions. This will help retsorestability and growth at this regional Bank.
A quick survey around Kenya or the streets of Nairobi on the origins of Mpesa will have you fooled. Over 80% of us Kenyans believe Mpesa is a national treasure that encapsulates the innovative potential of the Kenyan people. But, the reality is far from this. Since 2008, we have been deceived on the brand of a foreign corporate colonial in bed with a corrupt Kenyan elite. Mpesa is an ongoing Heist and is not Kenyan invention by any measure.
Today, it is no coincidence that Safaricom and Mpesa run and control almost all aspects of our lives. Our mobile phones, bank services, taxi service, government payment services and even Nairobi’s Big Brother 24/7 security cameras. Behind the big green brand that is now synonymous with our country, is a carefully weaved scheme to rob unsuspecting Kenyans. Safaricom and Mpesa are golden egg laying geese for Kenya’s rooted political elite. A money minting machine.
To understand how it all comes together, it is important to connect the dots and dig deep. This is what we did and the revelations are shocking to say the least. What you are about to read is an 8 part investigative report on the roots of Mpesa, Safaricom, CBA Bank and the daylight robbery that is going on in Kenya.
The True Origins of Mpesa
“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana
The history of Mpesa dates begins at Vodafone UK’s strategic office in 2003 (source) . Vodafone was experimenting with new products for its emerging business unit. The basic idea was to partner with the UK government’s DFID Financial Deepening Challenge Fund (FDCF) to churn out innovative ideas in line with millennium development goals. After a successful proposal, workshops were organized in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam. On 11 October, 2005, a pilot partnership followed between the Safaricom, Faulu Kenya, a microfinance institution (MFI), and Commercial Bank of Africa.
A team led by Nick Hughes and Susan Lonie was put together to drive the Kenyan initiative. Originally, M-pesa was conceived to streamline Microfinance Institution (MFI) manual based operation. However, person to person money transfer turned out to be the killer app, shelving the original use cases.
A team led by Nick Hughes and Susan Lonie was put together to drive the Kenyan initiative. Originally, M-pesa was conceived to streamline Microfinance Institution (MFI) manual based operation. However, person to person money transfer turned out to be the killer app, shelving the original use cases.
At the time, Safaricom was heavily linked to the Moi political class of the 90s. Ex-President Moi, Biwott and unknown associates owned of 12.5% of Safaricom via a veiled ownership through Mobitelea. Safaricom was perfect for this project
Once Mpesa exhibited early signs of success, Safaricom and Vodafone executives green lighted the project.
Once Mpesa exhibited early signs of success, Safaricom and Vodafone executives green lighted the project.
Sagentia, a technology consultancy firm based out of Cambridge was contracted to build out everything. Not only did the firm write the software for Mpesa, it also designed the business processes, and provided operational and technical support during the pilot and after launch (source). This is the true origin of Mpesa, the rest is history.
Meru Governor Peter Munya when he visited Somaliland to negotiate miraa trade deal
Cries that Kenya is being isolated in East African region is no longer news. Uganda, a close ally and business partner changed its mind and routed its oil pipeline via Tanzania; Rwanda gave up the standard gauge railway and chose the Tanzanian route too. After so many years as the regions giant economy Kenya is expected to be more confident than its beginning to sound.
Certain quarters claim there has been a radical change since the entrance of President John Magufuli, a dictator who is bullying beyond his area of administration.
Though it must also be noted that some development projects are driven by national ego and patriotic vanity like medical infrastructures it’s not business as usual for Kenya and its neighbours. The country has suffered yet another blow when it’s would be desperate neighbour Somalia banned Kenyan flights carrying herbal stimulant khat (miraa) without any warning, explanation or indication of how long it will be in place.
Khat is grown in Kenya and Ethiopia but very popular in Somalia. Over 15 commercial cargo flights arrive in Mogadishu daily from Kenya with khat valued at over 400, 000 dollars retail price. So many Kenyans, mostly farmers will be affected if this ban is not lifted. Sellers in Somalia also claim that their families’ livelihoods will be in jeopardy. Civil Aviation minister Ali Ahmed who made the announcement did not give the reason for the temporary ban but he said it was not because Somalia is hosting a regional body meeting on Saturday, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Though the Kenyan government promised to support the growers of the crop, mainly from Meru region, miraa as its popularly known in Kenya is under serious threat after it was banned in Europe. It’s also banned in United States and Canada. Arguments by a former addict turned anti-khat campaigner Abukar Awale alone cannot be the reason for the ban, that khat contributes a lot to domestic violence.
There is something the authorities are not telling miraa farmers and consumers. Kenyan businesses in or Somalia have been under scathing criticism since the beginning of Operation Linda Nchi. Scrupulous Kenyan businessmen or ‘cartels’ have over the time been accused of running illegal charcoal business, shipping to Oman through Somali. How the charcoal gets to Somalia remains a mystery and so is the reason for miraa ban?
Somali-Somaliland bad blood seems to have caught the governor in the heat. Somali Ambassador to Kenya Gamal Hassan said Mr Munya’s earlier visit to Hargeisa in July had led to political pressure which prompted his government to act.
The ambassador reportedly say Munya linked the territorial integrity of the country to the miraa trade and interfered in the internal affairs of the country. This he say has created a lot of unbearable pressure on the government leading to the ban.
While in Somalia, the Meru governor met with Somaliland Deputy President Abdurrahman Ishmael, the Foreign Affairs minister and his Finance counterpart.
But Mogadishu said Mr Munya’s reported comments on the probable independence of Somaliland angered officials and politicians who are keen to have one united Somalia.
Munya who’s life is now I’m danger following his own alarm, reads a political malice into it coming at a time when traders across his county, largest miraa producers have been staging demos and counting losses from the ban.
The governor claimed that former prominent Meru politician Ntai wa Nkuraru was killed over the miraa issue, and he would not want the same to happen to him.
Calculated move He claimed there was a calculated move by his opponents to malign his name by claiming he was a hindrance in the marketing of the stimulant in the export market. Claims have been rife that the miraa ban came as a result of Munya’s visit to Somaliland early in the year.
A good number of people do not know Vivienne Apopo but amongst the banking fraternity, she’s one of the most powerful figures of the industry in the region. Vivienne Yeda Apopo is a Kenyan banker and business attorney. She is the current Director General of East African Development Bank(EADB).She assumed that position on 15 January 2009. She also currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Central Bank of Kenya, since 14 March 2011.
The East African Development Bank (EADB) is a development finance institution with the objective of promoting development in the member countries of the East African Community. Governments of Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda both have stakes in the Bank. Coincidentally, African Development Bank and Commercial Bank of Africa which is affiliated to President Uhuru also have stakes in the Estimated USD381M assets valued bank.
Vivienne was posed by a section of ruling elite to succeed Njunguna Ndung’u as the Central Bank Of Kenya Governor since they viewed her as a compliant to innuendos that they might pursue. Her bid however didn’t materialize. However, from information within Kenya Insights hold, Apopo’s efforts did materialize elsewhere, creating a corruption and impunity den at EADB.
The lady boss who is a darling to the President given that he holds stakes in EADB, boasts of being untouchable making her run the institution as she wishes knowing no repercussion would befall her in line.
Distressed staff members wrote a petition to the Board of Governors of EADB detailing gross misconduct but Kenya Insights is informed by insiders that she used her influence to silence and water down the petition forcing the staff to seek other alternatives including writing a letter directly to the President who happens to be a double shareholder as GoK and CBA.
The petition from EADB staff members below, details the gritty details of how Apopo is slowly but steadily running down one of the highly valued Banks in the region something that should worry all stakeholders, majorly the individual governments.
We, a group of staff at EADB write to express our concern over the manner in which the Bank is being run under the leadership of Ms. Vivienne Yeda Apopo. We bring to the attention of the concerned parties requesting that her services as Director General at EADB should be terminated immediately for several reasons some of which we will explain below; Despite the fact that the Bank went through a restructuring process in 2011, the loan book is not growing.
The DG is hesitant to grow the business. Much as she might have been good at cleaning up the book and recovering the written off loan (which account for a bigger percentage of the profit the bank has been reporting) she does not have the will and capacity to grow the loan book. The business teams within the Bank have brought in several viable projects in the pipeline but she never wants to approve them or recommend them to the board. Some of these projects have very high social and economic development impacts and are financially viable but she has declined most of them.
The Bank is currently highly capitalized with regular share capital contributions from the member states. The bank has also been able to attract several lines of credits from the likes of African Development Bank, the European Investment Bank, BADEA, OPEC, etc. However out of the Bank total assets of USD 381 million, only USD 165 million has been utilized to lend to projects. The Balance of USD 216 million has been placed as short term deposits in commercial banks.
To confirm that the current DG does not have the interest or capacity to grow this strategic Bank for the region, if you check through the records at the Bank, you will find that over the last 3 years, projects valued at over USD 200 million, (most of which are viable) have been declined and removed from the Bank pipeline at her instructions. Countries like Rwanda and Tanzania have financed less than 5 projects each in the last five years. Yet these countries have a pipeline that she declines, even when the country units and the projects committee of the Bank have recommended them for financing. Uganda and Kenya have equally suffered the same. Countries like Rwanda and Tanzania also subscribe to share capital from tax payers money and yet they are not fully benefiting from the Bank. Her lack of interest to grow the Bank has become worse in that since we started this year of
2016, only two projects in the entire Bank have been presented to the board for approval and we still don’t have projects that she has cleared for detailed appraisal as candidate for the next board approval. We are likely to see no business at all this year much as the Bank still receives viable projects that require funding and at the same time the Bank is well capitalized. The two projects which were approved early this year are far away from being disbursed due to a very slow legal documentation process caused by the reasons we shall highlight below.
Because the Bank is not lending and yet it is well capitalized (some of the lines of credits are used to reimburse some of the projects which have already been funded/disbursed which is fraudulent) the Bank profits have started dropping as evidenced in 2015, which situation is likely to continue because the high profits recorded in the previous years were mainly from recoveries of loans previously written off. These written off projects have fully paid up and at the same time the book is not growing because we are not lending. Coupled with some bad projects which she has single handedly pushed to the board even when the rest of the teams in the Bank have recommended not to proceed (Like Dari Ltd in Kenya) the bank will soon find its self in the situation it was in about 8 years ago with no business, high NPL’s and with some court cases which might take the direction of blue line case.
Much as she declines a number of projects, she still accepts some projects in which she is deemed to have personal interest because some of them are at times not viable like the DARI we have just mentioned above. The Bank needs a new DG who will put systems and structures in place, empower and respect the structures to deliver. Otherwise the Bank is not visible at all in the region and we risk becoming irrelevant very soon.
List of EADB owners and stakes.
Out of all the projects approved by board in the last three years, projects worth over USD 150 million have never been disbursed and will never be disbursed. A few of these projects were declined or halted by the clients but over 80% of these projects were stopped by the DG. The clients got so frustrated and end up going to look for funding somewhere else. She does not want to grow the book and she ends up frustrating good projects. The Bank’s name in the market has been tainted partly because of this practice.
In the first place, she brings such projects to the board to show the board that she is working hard, but at the back of her mind, she is simply manipulating the board members to approve her other requests which have nothing to do with business. She did a lot of that to get the board to approve the several budgets for renovations of the office and residential bank houses, on top of using it as a lobby tool for the board to give her the current contract. We wonder why the board does not ask despite approving many projects, the book is not growing. Please note that all projects we bring to the board will have paid 1%
of the loan amount as appraisal fees. We are supposed to refund 75% of that 1% if we don’t disburse the project. However the appraisal fees refund process has been applied selectively. Clients known to her normally receive their refunds and those not known to her or the small ones never get their refunds. An example is, she refunded appraisal fees for the Rai Holdings group (a multimillion dollar company) but refused to refund for a small farmers organization called Igara Tea Growers. Over USD 500,000 remains un refunded to date much as these funds were part of the profits declared by Bank. Some of the clients have threatened to take the Bank to court if these monies are not refunded.
The Bank is currently experiencing serious governance issues with the current DG making all decisions by herself at all levels. She approves all payments even for buying coffee, she approved any project into the pipeline, she approves all term sheets, she approves all appraisal reports, etc. in other words the Bank is one a person show and if she is away, every thing comes to a stand still. Since she travels a lot and even when she has left any one in charge, that person can never approve or make any decision on anything without her express instructions (even if she is in Europe) which stalls so many activities at the Bank.
The Bank is supposed to have a staff structure comprised of the DG and other Directors/Head of Departments, among others. The Directors/Heads of departments would be running the day to day affairs of the Bank and leave her as the DG to make strategic decisions for the Bank. However the opposite is true. She manages each and every aspect of the Bank’s day to day operations which stifle activities and decision making at the Bank. For very many years now she has refused to fill most gaps in the organization structure which leaves her to run the bank as an individual would run a house hold. She has told some people that the EAC region does not have qualified people that can be recruited to run the Bank in those positions and yet other institutions have been able to recruit people from within the region.
Remember the Bank recruits very highly qualified and skilled staff who once they get into the bank, she makes them idle. She is scared of being challenged and the reason she makes all decisions by her self. This means that all existing structures and activities of the Bank must wait for her approval before anything moves, however small the decision to make might be. We invite the board members to come and interact with staff members in the absence of the DG, they will be shocked at what mess the DG has put this Bank into. In all her life as DG at EADB, she has never held a single management meeting with the senior managers in the Bank and not even with the country managers responsible for the different countries. She has never addressed staff, she never
participates in staff end of year parties, and therefore no body in the Bank knows her vision and strategy for the Bank. Which leaves every one guessing which direction the Bank will take apart from herself? Since she solely determines which projects the Bank should fund, the basis of which is some times is not project viability, rather personal interest and whether she knows the project owners personally or not.
For sure the Bank can not do business in that way. The Bank is currently managing a line of credit from KfW of Euros 8 million with a Euros 1 million for Technical assistance. The financial institutions who benefited from this line of credit include; Dfcu bank (Euro 5 million), Ecobank Uganda (Euros 1.5 million) and Finance Trust bank (Euro 1.5 million). The selection of Dfcu bank and Ecobank were influenced by the DG personally. The fund is meant for rural enterprises but Ecobank has only 4 branches out of Kampala and may not effectively utilize the funds.
Funds were disbursed to Dfcu in July 2015 but todate they have on lent less than 10% of the funds. Ecobank has held the funds for close 6 months now and they have not lent even a single coin. The staff had preferred the smaller banks like Finance Trust bank who have to date lent out over 90% of the funds we disbursed. The smaller banks whose main mandate is to lend in rural areas are more effective for this kind of fund as longer as they are regulated by the central bank. The DG insists on putting in place tough conditions which weed out the smaller banks in the process. The IPC consultants hire by KfW are currently in the bank and can confirm this information. This is an example to show bad leadership and how the DG wants to manage each and every process and decision in the bank. Of course we would propose that KfW puts a halt to the ongoing process for the new agribusiness line of credit until the board has sorted out leadership issues at the Bank otherwise the funds may not meet the objective for which it is meant to achieve.
The permanent secretary Ministry of Finance sits on the board of the Bank and therefore KfW could make sure the board acts through the Ministry of finance. The Bank had a strategy 2010 to 2015, but this strategy changed several times depending on who she was presenting it to. Staff members were not allowed access to the strategy and as a result, if you randomly talked to most staff especially managers and below, they don’t know which direction the Bank is heading. We proposed several times to her that the Bank should hold meetings with all staff to cascade the strategy down wards but she refused all that. Right now the Bank is supposed to be developing a strategy for 2016 to 2020, however she hired a consultant from the UK who is paid very expensively to develop a strategy alone. This activity has not involved other staff and therefore the draft strategy is only
known to her and the consultant. We believe she is preparing the strategy document to simply meet the requirements of the board members and other external parties. However like many other documents prepared by consultants it will never be cascaded widely within the Bank. This can also be confirmed by the IPC consultants who were hired as part of the KfW line of credit technical assistance. So most likely business will continue as usual. She sets targets for countries arbitrarily without putting in place resources to help counties achieve these targets.
The DG does not even hold the quarterly and annual appraisal meetings with the managers who report directly to her. She has delegated this role to a HR consultancy firm (adept systems/Sally Mukwana based in Nairobi) which firm does not appreciate the day today challenges the staff go through in order to do their jobs. Even when the consultant is told of the challenges the staff go through dealing with a DG who can not communicate properly with staff, despises every one, they can’t change how she operates because they still want to be hired for the job.
The HR consultant resorts to intimidating staff and sometimes recommending some of them for firing or not renewing their contracts simply based on imagination. The internal HR unit has been reduced to clerks and can never advise the DG and she takes in their advice. The staff members are de-motivated and frustrated which ends up in many staff members simply resigning and moving on. If some one cares to cross check this information, get to the Bank records and you will be surprised at how many staff have resigned in the last 4 years for such a small organization. This destabilizes the Bank since staff members that are critical to the Bank and have gained understanding of how the bank operates, normally leave the Bank.
The Bank needs stability and growth. But this can not and will never be achieved under the current leadership of our DG. Adept systems consultancy firm (Sally Mukwana) has continuously been retained by the Bank for over four years now, initially to support the recruitment process but after failing to recruit staff. They have ended up duplicating roles of the HR department on an ongoing basis and yet the HR manager and her staff are left idle. The consultancy firm has cost the Bank close to USD 500,000 over time doing assignments which should have been implemented by the HR department if we had a DG who respects her staff.
Much as the Bank might have required short term HR consultancies, they should never have taken on lots of the roles played by the HR unit on a long term basis. The HR consultants have even on several occasions gone to present to the board, when it should have been the HR manager doing this. As a result these permanent consultants cost the Bank a lot of money in air tickets, 5 star hotel accommodation for long periods and consultancy fees. This is a waste of tax payer’s money and gross abuse of office by the DG who hires them.
Because she can not manage people and she never wants to implement recommendations from a professional HR manager, she retains these HR consultants to manage and intimidate staff on her behalf.
known to her and the consultant. We believe she is preparing the strategy document to simply meet the requirements of the board members and other external parties. However like many other documents prepared by consultants it will never be cascaded widely within the Bank. This can also be confirmed by the IPC consultants who were hired as part of the KfW line of credit technical assistance. So most likely business will continue as usual.
She sets targets for countries arbitrarily without putting in place resources to help counties achieve these targets. The DG does not even hold the quarterly and annual appraisal meetings with the managers who report directly to her. She has delegated this role to a HR consultancy firm (adept systems/Sally Mukwana based in Nairobi) which firm does not appreciate the day today challenges the staff go through in order to do their jobs. Even when the consultant is told of the challenges the staff go through dealing with a DG who can not communicate properly with staff, despises every one, they can’t change how she operates because they still want to be hired for the job.
The HR consultant resorts to intimidating staff and sometimes recommending some of them for firing or not renewing their contracts simply based on imagination. The internal HR unit has been reduced to clerks and can never advise the DG and she takes in their advice. The staff members are de-motivated and frustrated which ends up in many staff members simply resigning and moving on. If some one cares to cross check this information, get to the Bank records and you will be surprised at how many staff have resigned in the last 4 years for such a small organization.
This destabilizes the Bank since staff members that are critical to the Bank and have gained understanding of how the bank operates, normally leave the Bank. The Bank needs stability and growth. But this can not and will never be achieved under the current leadership of our DG. Adept systems consultancy firm (Sally Mukwana) has continuously been retained by the Bank for over four years now, initially to support the recruitment process but after failing to recruit staff. They have ended up duplicating roles of the HR department on an ongoing basis and yet the HR manager and her staff are left idle. The consultancy firm has cost the Bank close to USD 500,000 over time doing assignments which should have been implemented by the HR department if we had a DG who respects her staff.
Much as the Bank might have required short term HR consultancies, they should never have taken on lots of the roles played by the HR unit on a long term basis. The HR consultants have even on several occasions gone to present to the board, when it should have been the HR manager doing this. As a result these permanent consultants cost the Bank a lot of money in air tickets, 5 star hotel accommodation for long periods and consultancy fees. This is a waste of tax payer’s money and gross abuse of office by the DG who hires them. Because she can not manage people and she never wants to implement recommendations from a professional HR manager, she retains these HR consultants to manage and intimidate staff on her behalf.
Of great concern is how she has handled the legal department in the Bank. The current DG was in the past years at the Bank as head of legal. Which roles she still duplicates up to today even when she is the DG. The legal department is very critical to the operations of the Bank but it has been crippled because of her. About 3 years ago, the bank had a stable and well experienced team of 4 lawyers from within the region (one from each country), who she frustrated and they all left the Bank.
These lawyers are still within the region working in various institutions they went holding very senior positions. So someone can talk to them to collaborate our story. After they resigned, she hired 4 other lawyers; 3 from Europe, 1 from USA and 1 from Kenya. These lawyers struggled to understand the local lawyers. Coupled with her frustrating them and not allowing them to question any thing, they all resigned in a space one year. The very expensive lawyers from Europe and USA were not necessary, since at that time we dint have many international transactions we were handling and if we had such, it would have made a lot of sense to use external local firms who are affiliated to some international firms. These lawyers disagreed with her mode of operation and all the three resigned.
This is after the Bank had spent a lot of money on them. At the same time, the DG single handedly sourced another law firm in the UK called Evershed who she has also used on several assignments over a period of time. So in procuring both the HR consultants and now the London law firm, not proper procurement guidelines were followed. The Bank does not have a lot of business at the moment to warrant the use of such law firms which charge the Bank an hourly fee of USD 520. The lawyers from this firm are sometimes flow into the country and spend at least a month in Kampala. They have to be accommodated in apartments which cost USD 3,000 per month.
The kind of assignments these international lawyers are paid a lot of money to do can surely be done by our lawyers within the region without wasting tax payer’s money. Simple assignment like reviewing tenancy agreements, reviewing term sheets drafting facility agreements for simple transactions should not be given to the London law firm which over time has cost the Bank close to USD 1 million.
We believe that because of her arrogance, she despises lawyers from within the EAC region. We don’t need such a person to continue heading a regional institution. She can argue that the use ot the London law firm is to avoid court cases like the blue line which almost took the Bank down. But remember blue line case was created by her when she was still the Head of legal at the Bank. Because she is extremely rude and arrogant to clients and staff (much as she puts on a different face to the outsider), this ends up getting the bank is legal battles especially with the clients which could have been avoided. Currently there are some loaming court cases which could easily end up like blue line if she continues as the DG at the Bank. Eden international took the Bank to court because of her arrogancy. She refused to meet and discuss amicably with the owner of the project who is also a Judge of the high court in Uganda.
This very simple case could end up badly. Another project (DARI Ltd owned by Hon Raphael Tuju) in Kenya has been mishandled by herself and there are many chances that it will end up in court for a loan of USD 9.197 million. Every body in the Bank advised against this project but she directed that the project should be taken to the board, it was approved and disbursed. However as we speak, it has already gone bad. An internal legal team recruited from the region supported by a panel of regional law firms from each country can sufficiently support the Bank without the need for London or USA based lawyers.
Currently the Bank has another lawyer on full time basis who was hired from London. He has been made idle and yet the Bank continues to pay him a heavy salary and an expatriate allowance. Even if the bank was to use international law firms, this should be on a very short term basis and on a particular transaction and such costs could be shared with the clients.
The manner in which the legal department has been handled is pure abuse of office and power. During the previous board meeting held in March this year, DARI Ltd and Benver Estates both projects from Kenya were supposed to have been on the NPL list. Because she did not want the Board members to ask many questions about DARI since it was only disbursed recently and not even fully. And by including DARI as an NPL, this would have raised the NPL ration above 5% which she did not want. She instead forced and intimidated one of the staff to lie to the board by including another project called Lake Heights in the portfolio report as an NPL when this project was not an NPL since it had been paying its loans normally for the last 7 monthly installment cycles.
Because of this, the staff who was forced to lie to the board by the DG, resigned immediately he returned from the board meeting in protest of this action, among other reasons all related to how he was belittled by the DG in front of the board members. This information can be confirmed by looking at the Bank records and the portfolio report which was presented to the board and the email exchanges between this particular staff and DG, where she pushed for these changes. We believe this is not the first time she is telling lies to the board members.
The Bank excessively uses consultants who are given short term contracts (3 to 6 months) which are always reviewed for up to 3 years and some beyond. These consultants cost the Bank a lot of money and yet they don’t help to build the institution. DG’s strategy is not to build a sustainable team at the Bank but to use short term and very expensive resources to achieve her person targets. Am sure she does not care what happens to the Bank after she leaves. She has painted a rosy picture to the outsiders and yet the Bank is rotten internally. Things could drastically change if a new DG is appointed for the Bank. For a small Bank of about 65 staff members, we have over 10 permanent consultants. Some of these consultants even sign documents and approval payments on behalf of the Bank which is very dangerous.
The Bank has received some grants from some institutions like AfDB and DEG (both shareholders) to build capacity of the Bank. What she has done is to hire very expensive consultants from Europe who come and work on their own and not allowed to interact with any staff members apart from her self.
These consultants have developed products, policies, manuals, risk management systems, however all these are idle. They can not apply because the day to day users were not involved or the consultants did not interact with the staff to ensure what they develop can be used in this environment.
I can say these grants have gone to waste. And yet they are meant to build the capacity of the bank and staff for sustainability. An independent audit needs to be carried out at the Bank but can only be successful when the DG has been interdicted. She threatens staff members not to renew their contracts and in the end staff keep quiet in order not to loose their jobs. However if every one knew that she is out, you can get the truth about the appalling state of the affairs at the Bank. The DG single handedly participates in all international and regional events, workshops, conferences and meeting where the Bank is usually invited. No staff member is ever involved in such travels and events. Even her country managers have not been exposed to international foras including those where a third party is willing to meet the costs. Under normal practice the DG would sometimes travel with her senior managers for exposure and training purposes but this does no happen here.
If an analysis was carried out on the Bank’s travel budget, you would be surprised that 99% of the travel budget for the bank is consumed by the DG alone. Because she never prepares any reports for such travels and neither does she brief any one on her return, the Bank can not effectively benefit from all the money it spends in such travels. Because she travels a lot and she still wants to control the Bank even while away, the Bank always comes to a stand still whenever she travels. We have lost creditability in the market because we delay to close transactions and can not give quick responses because we always have to rely on her availability to approve any responses.
You will realize that over 50% of approvals are made on mail, because she is rarely around. For example she has not stepped at the head office the entire month of May. Payments to service providers and suppliers have been pending. No project work is moving and everything at the Bank has come to a stand still because she is away. We believe that she could either delegate real authority while she is away so that work can continue but this can not happen. Or else she could delegate her senior staff or country managers to represent her at some of these foras but she never does so. Her expensive trips alongside the high budget for her office and her home cost the Bank a lot of money.
Imagine an institution where the DG earns USD 35,000 per month on top of all her personal expenses being catered for by the Bank including at home, with two SUV vehicles at her full time disposal, while the rest of the majority of staff earn below USD 5,000 apart from consultants. She also frequently cancels air ticks in business class which costs the Bank a lot of money. We believe this is abuse and it should be stopped. All these facts can be confirmed. The DG has on several occations picked perdiems from the Bank that she is going to work from the Nairobi office but she never appears at the Bank’s office in Nairobi at all. Since Kenya is her home country, we imagine she spends this bank time and money on her private errands.
On several occasions, the DG has used the Bank cars to go for her private trips in her home village in western Kenya. The use of the Bank vehicle for her personal trips in her home village has happened several times and can be confirmed from records at the Busia board between Kenya and Uganda. The latest occurrence being during the recent Uganda election period where she spent quite alot of time in her village with the office car. This is total abuse of Bank money and assets. The DG spends a lot of time travelling in the name of looking for partners and lines of credits and yet we can’t lend out the funds we have currently from various lenders. We propose the bank cuts down on the many partnerships being negotiated and instead concentrate on the lending business since this is our core business.
Once we have stabilized and grown the book, then we can get into partnerships and look for more lines of credits. Otherwise we are spoiling our name as a bank because the lender and partners we have are starting to realize that what they were told at the time of getting into partnerships was not true. Once we lose them, word will go around and we shall end up failing to get more in feature.
For example, we have hard KfW and AfDB complain about certain things they were told would be put in place and up to now she has not allowed them to be in place. The Bank has a projects committee and country office projects committees. However most decisions from these committees are not respected by her. If she does not like the project or the owner, even if every one else has recommended the project, it will never be funded. And yet in normal institutions, the DG should not be involved in such technical work and decisions.
If she has an interest in a project (Like Dari) however bad it is, she will intimidate every one until the project has been funded. Whoever tried to oppose her, usually have their contracts not renewed. Recently African Development bank had a supervision mission at EADB. This mission talked to some staff and discovered most of the abuse of office and governance weaknesses we have revealed in this petition.
The mission was conducted by Ms. Juliet Byaruhanga (Senior Private Sector Officer based in Kampala) and Mr. Dennis Ansah (Chief Portfolio Manager Officer based in Nigeria). The board should feel free to read their report or directly talk to them. They will confirm much of what is contained in this petition. She does not respect other institutions and their heads both within the region and out side the region. Most CEO’s in the market have complained that she does not give them due respect. Examples include; she never attends most of the EAC secretariat meetings even when invited by the secretary general.
In 2015, FMO indicated to the Bank that they wanted to sell off their shares and exit the Bank. FMO senior officers who were working on the exit plan made several attempts to meet the DG but in vain. They are not happy with the Bank. Some heads of units from KfW head office in German tried to make appointments to meet with her last year but they failed. They are not very happy with the Bank. The Bank is currently hosting the UNFCCC – Regional collaborating centre for East South and central Africa at the Bank Head office in Kampala.
However the DG has refused to meet the UNFCCC bosses who come to the RCC in our Kampala office on several occasions. The UNFCCC team has hosted several high profile seminars and workshops where she is invited to officiate but she never attends. They have invited her to attend some meetings at their head offices or send staff which she never responds to. They don’t respect the bank and they are not happy. Locally in Uganda where the Bank HQ is located, she has ignored severely high level events.
We appreciate that she can not be every where at all times or attend every event, but some are normally very critical for the Bank and she cant even delegate. As a result, we are loosing value in the market and lately, the Bank is not invited to some key events, where a Bank like EADB would add value being a regional bank. The Bank has started loosing visibility, credibility and relevancy both within the financial services market because we are not financing serious projects but also in the eyes of the key stakeholders because of the way the DG behaves. If you talked to some CEO’s of some commercial banks, they will tell you that she is very disrespectful.
At the moment, there are two large syndicates being arranged in the Ugandan market but the lead arrangers for these syndicates and the participating banks don’t want EADB to participate because of how EADB has handled documentation for syndicates in the past, causing lots of delays to concluding these transactions, since the DG wants to manage every step of the process. The Bank’s image in the market has diminished.
Because of the several resignations, some country offices which generate business for the Bank have been left grossly understaffed for some time and yet she does not seem to be interested in filling up some of these positions. For example, Country office Rwanda has one project officer and the country manager, Tanzania has one project officer and the country manager and Uganda also has one project officer and the country manager. We believe there are enough skills within the region to fill these positions. Much as she tells HR that we cant find the right people in the region. She has on several occasions tried to negotiate with staff from the UK but we strongly believe that the Bank does not need staff from the UK or USA.
The region has enough skills which can fill the positions and deliver for the Bank if well motivated, trained and exposed alongside good leadership. Regarding the bank strategy and her ability to get the outside world to think the Bank has greatly inproved, she has kept various versions of the previous strategy and the organization structure. Depending on who she is presenting to, she has always used different versions of the strategy and organization structure. She has told lies at different foras that certain positions within the organization structure are filled, when she is referring to consultants who go away after some time.
The current strategy has been prepared by a consultant from Maxwell stamp London who are very expensive, they don’t have an appreciation of the local operating environment and we believe the draft strategy in place currently will keep in the shelf like the previous strategies. The consultant has worked by himself and the users have no idea what has been prepared, what has informed the strategies, etc. a proper DG would have involved all key staff in the strategy formulation and review process. Of course she has manipulated the outside world including Lenders, the board, rating agencies only because the Bank cleaned the book and was making some profits. But these might not be the case any longer.
Because she has told many lies to the board and other partners, she never wants staff to freely interact with the board and other partners. The same reason she might not want to travel with staff to some international events for fear that staff could easily spill the beans. Staff members have tended to keep quiet in fear of loosing their jobs since the DG has been given excessive powers to determine staff members destiny.
All staff are given two years contract while some after being renewed are given one year. Two years are two few for a staff working in a development bank. A project cycle from admitting a project into the pipeline to approval, to full disbursement and implementation takes about 5 to 10 years. Staff should be given at least a 5years contract to be available during the life of the projects they work on. However the DG reduced the contract tenor as a tool for her to intimidate staff.
Staffs live and work under fear, praying that after two years their contracts should be renewed. At the Bank contract renewal does not depend on performance per say but on what the DG feels about the particular staff. HR does not have any say in contract renewal. Some staff who she is not in good books with normally have their contracts expire and they work for even months before she renews their contracts. If she wants a staff to leave the Bank, she gives short contracts for 2 weeks to 3 months simply to frustrate the staff until they resign.
The 2 years contract affects staff productivity because after one year, most staff spend time looking for other jobs just in case their contract is not renewed. Remember staffs have families to look after and this uncertainty is normally inhuman. On the other hand, most staff normally depend on staff loans from banks for personal development. Coupled with the fact that the Bank does not give staff loans, no commercial banks out there will give staff loans for 2 years, and even when they do, and such a loan can not help any staff to develop.
These are some of the things that motivate staff to work hard. The bank has serious procurement flaws which need urgent attention. The Bank seems to be loosing a lot of money through the single sourcing approach by the DG. We strongly believe costs have been inflated due to lack of proper procedures. The Bank at some point had hired a professional procurement specialist to support guide the Bank to follow procurement guidelines, but he shortly resigned when the DG tried to arm-twist him to circumvent procedures.
We saw a lot of poor quality work and materials used during the Head office building renovations and yet a lot of money was spent. In some areas of the building, certain fittings are already falling apart. We believe there will be serious issues between the Bank and the contractor when finally handing over the building because of quality issues. A serious procurement audit needs to be carried out. In some cases we observe more items were procured that would normally be required for an institution like EADB which uses tax payers money.
A simple example is a well furnished board room with state of art equipment, which is never used. The Bank continues to spend a lot of money holding board meetings in hotels even when the meeting has taken place in Uganda. The building has two restaurants with state of art fitted kitchens, both of which are never used at all and yet staff have to go out of the building to look for lunch even on rainy days. We believe over procurement and single sourcing approach was used as a means to squander bank money.
To give you an example of how staff are mistreated, all staff including senior managers and the Uganda country manager park their cars on the street or at the Imperial Royale parking lot (about half a kilometer from the Bank) whereby staff have to walk to office after parking their cars whether its raining or not. The office parking space is 75% empty and only used by the DG infront of the building at some tenants at the back of the building.
Seriously the Bank’s core business is financing projects and not letting out buildings. Therefore tenants should not be give priority for parking space over staff members who dedicate their time to work for the Bank. I know because the DG does not want to grow the book through lending, and yet she still wants to report some profit, she is sacrificing staff for tenants because she needs that other income from letting out Bank property to supplement the bank profits. This is not the Bank’s core business and therefore staff should be treated with respect.
Another example is the manner in which foreign staff members working in Kampala are treated when it comes to the use of Bank houses in Naguru. The best houses are given to non-bank tenants and the worst houses are left for Bank staff. Recently one of the flats where most of the Bank staff members were staying was renovated. After the renovation and to every one’s surprise, the Bank staff are being asked to pay higher rent of UGX 1.336 million (about USD 400) and non-bank staff members are asked to pay UGX 900,000.
We are surprised why non-bank tenants both at the office and at the flats are favored more than the Bank staff. We believe the rating agencies (Moody’s and Fitch) have been given false information or influenced to give the bank the Baa3 rating. We are very sure, if carried out an independent rating audit without meeting with the DG, the rating would fall considerably because she has not built a sustainable institution. She only cares about what happens while she is around and she will do any thing including bribing to maintain that status quo. Some lenders have started noticing the lies and it will be a matter of time before things get out of hand.
There is nowhere in the world an institution which is being run in this manner can be rated Baa3 unless the rating agency has been influenced which we believe is the case with EADB. The staff and tenants on the building are concerned as to why the DG moves with an armed body guard at all times. The body guard sits infront of her office door at all times. The DG does not allow any other person in the bank lift when she is in it apart from her driver and the body guard.
In fact the lift is locked when she is in it and opened when she is exiting. This paints a very bad picture for a leader of such an institution. If she can not be free with her own staff and tenants at office, then she is not supposed to be leading such an institution. Sometimes the heads of institutions who rent space at the office building are left dismayed as to why a leader of such an institution like EADB could behave in this manner.
Very interesting is that there are some staff members at head office who spend more than two years without ever seeing the DG. The fact that the DG refused to hire heads of departments including head of legal/company secretary (a position she still heads todate) who would also independently record board and governing council meeting minutes, there has been a conflict of interest and sometimes falsification of minutes of the board and governing council meetings to suite her needs.
Much as there is always a minute taker), she decides the final version of the minutes which are circulated to the board by herself. Some of the board decisions are usually altered and because there is no closer monitoring of her activities, such things go on un-noticed. For example, some time back the board approved an update of the Bank IT systems. However the Bank is currently installing new Bank systems for over USD 1 million which have been single sourced by the DG. Similar situations could have happened with the decisions taken regarding renovations of the Bank building.
It is possible that the money spent on renovating the bank building could have built and furnished a new building of the same size. Similarly sourcing of the IT installations (of the magnitude of over USD 1.2 million) going on at the Bank at the moment was single sourced and negotiated by the DG herself without going through the right procurement procedures. This could lead to loss of Bank money. In order to avoid such situations in feature, we believe DG’s should work for one fixed term of 5 years and rotated from different countries of the EAC like it is for the secretary general of the EAC.
The Bank needs some level of regulation by a financial institution regulatory agency. The member states could decide to have the central banks for the different countries supervise some aspects of the bank on a rotational basis annually. The EAC secretariat could play part of this role, but we believe as a financial institution there needs to be proper supervision of the Bank by a financial regulator. It is important for the powers of the DG to be spread, otherwise this actions of impunity will always continue because of the too much powers the chatter gives to the DG.
You will wonder why as staff of the Bank we have taken very long to bring these issues out in such a manner. We believed that most of these issues have been noted and reported at board meetings by the Chief Internal Auditor but we don’t see the board taking any action to propose change of top leadership at the Bank. A detailed audit report was presented to the board at the end of 2014 by the internal auditors highlighting all these issues but things have instead deteriorated.
This is now long over due and if the Bank is to be saved from going back where it was about 7 years ago, some immediate action needs to be taken. We request that the DG is immediately relieved of her duties. One of the country managers can act for a short period and the board and the governing council finds a replacement. Like we mentioned earlier, the Bank has very qualified and skilled staff who simply needs a good leader to drive the Bank business to greater heights. The fact that we have used these means to bring out these issues, we are willing to go all the way to ensure that change takes place in the interest of the Bank and the tax payer’s money.
And therefore if no immediate action is taken, we shall share this information with the international lenders and the class B shareholders and the media. Obviously the heads of state will get to know as well. Please note that we are not holding you at ransom and neither are we threatening you. We just need to save this Bank. The region needs it. We also encourage the board to meet with the staff, and as long as you promise to protect the staff, you will get to the bottom of the issues.
But with the current DG in office, staff may not be willing to come out and give you more details. There is more that we could not put out here. The DG needs to change now. We are aware of when her current contract will expire but by then, things will be irreversible. Its better she steps a side now. There wont be any crisis. The Bank will continue running much as the board might have to put a mechanism where they support whoever will act as a temporary DG until a new and substantive DG is recruited.
The Bank needs stability and growth. These can only be achieved if Vivienne Yeda is out of the Bank. This can be done peacefully by simply asking her to resign. We are also proposing that the Charter should be amended to among other things, stop serving board members to borrow from the Bank. We are aware some board members have borrowed from the Bank. Once a board member has borrowed from the bank, they get compromised and cannot put the DG at task to explain why certain things are done the way they are done, because they feel they owe her and therefore such board members easily lose objectivity.
This might partly explain why things have gone so wrong and the board is aware and yet not action is taken. We have delivered this document to many recipients using hand delivery, email and courier. However we request that who ever receives it first should bring it to the attention of the Bank board chairman (DR. Kamau Thugge – Principle Secretary, The National Treasury, Republic of Kenya) just in case he delays to receive it to enable him initiate action. This petition was initially sent out weeks ago to the board members. However we have not seen any action being taken. We have decided to share with the lenders (KfW, AfDB and EIB.). FMO has also been notified because we have reffered to them in this petition. Should we not here any reaction and a communication from the board to all staff of the Bank on the actions being taken by end of June 2016, we shall escalate to another level). This might hurt the bank but the board will be held responsible since you are aware of what is happening. You might chose to ignore this petition because it has not been signed by any staff member. This does not stop the fact that there is a big problem which needs urgent attention.
During the last term’s fire fiasco that clobbered most high schools in the country with scores of schools razed, murmurs of cartels were heard with many pointing fingers at the exams leaking faction.
It was also blamed that the publishing firms conspiring with corrupt head teachers were unhappy with Education CS Fred Matiang’i strict audit policies. A cartel also exists between County Education officials and respective headteachers where they conspire to inject unnecessary particulars in the fee structure and split the loot on maturity.
Parents end up being the victims of this buffoonery and plain robbery. This has been shown in exorbitant fee statements across many schools.
For example in St Georges girls, the school wanted to add new facilities in an already congested area. So the principal and administration imposed 20,000 on all students compulsory. For those who went without it they got chased home.
Concerns from this are the orphans, poor children. How would an ordinary casual labourer, newspaper vendor or jobless parent who’s basic needs are even a struggle be able to afford that !?? Charity is voluntary. Apparently the ministry of education approved of it. I hear it’s happening in alot of schools but it’s not fair.
Here’s a copy of the fee structure;
The school is near statehouse and KNEC on Dennis Pritt Road. Normally, parent’s approval must be sought before inclusion of extra particulars in the school fees in the case of St Georges under Principal Mrs Rukunga, imposed the 20K on parents this is unfair if not criminal. Such burglary is denying bright students from getting quality education of not keeping the out of school in totality. Shame on you the Principal and Kenya Insights urges Education CS to jump into the poor students help.
This ploy is not limited to this school alone and is replicated nearly in all schools a disturbing trend that is making basic education extremely expensive competing with tertiary levels. We’re hoping the no nonsense CS Fred Matiangi is going to crack a whip on these menaces frustrating education.
President Uhuru Kenyatta presents Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore (left) with an award
Why Safaricom is Kenya’s Untouchable
This is the second issue of our eight parts investigative series on Safaricom. On its May issue, edition, the Nairobi Law monthly ran with the title ‘Why Safaricom is Kenya’s Untouchable’. No truer words have been spoken on Kenya’s ongoing mass brainwash by a foreign company and closely tied group of Kenyan elite. Safaricom has since sued writers of NLM for defamation. Nation Media Group have also had their adverts contracts with Safaricom terminated when they went ahead to highlight the KPMG audit report that unearthed multi million heist within the teleco.
Safaricom is today the highest tax payer, makes $380 million dollars in profit and employs 5000 Kenyans. Mpesa is a cash cow for Kenya’s political architects. The mobile money unit rakes in 30% of the company’s revenue, 41 billion in 2016, a figure that has gone up consistently over 9 years.
But, behind the veils of Safaricom’s shareholder structure, lies powerful political and corporate vested interest. Their intention is to perpetuate the dance and charade, while siphoning off profits for their fat pockets. Watu wamekuwa wajanjez!
Kenya’s Corruption 2.0 is nothing like the yester years of the Moi Era. Today, corruption is all about well positioned publicly listed companies to milk Kenyans of every coin.
Half of every transaction fee on your Mpesa transactions goes abroad to Vodafone PLC UK. 5% of airtime commissions via Mpesa also go to Vodafone as part of a license agreement. 40% of all profits made by Safaricom go to Vodafone UK Plc as shareholder of 40% of Safaricom’s shares. We, the public only get to own 25%, while the Government of Kenya holds 35% via Treasury.
2 weeks ago, Safaricom announced a special dividend, worth 28 billion. Close to half will be repatriated to the UK’s British Vodafone. The timing of this ‘special dividend’ is suspect, with Kenya’s upcoming elections.
Over and top of profits, there are royalties owed to Vodafone. Vodafone collects annual fees for the contractual licensed use of Mpesa. Vodafone Sales and Services Ltd (VSSL) owns the intellectual property to Mpesa.
“As the inventor of the globally acclaimed mobile money payments service, Vodafone is entitled to licence fees from Safaricom, calculated as a fraction of M-Pesa’s annual turnover. Vodafone Sales and Services Ltd (VSSL) owns proprietary rights to the M-Pesa platform and earns service fees accrued from the use of the mobile money transfer solution.” Business Daily
The terms of the contract stipulate quarterly payments as royalties annually amounting to between 11% – 25% of all Mpesa revenues. So now Kenya and all the services in Kenya that rely on Mpesa tied to a perpetual license owned by Vodafone. The country’s crucial infrastructure – SACCOs, Micro finance institution, Banking, Utility payments, Taxi service, Lipa na Mpesa and the KRA are tied to a licensed product.
This contract is a sham, just like the much-hyped Homecoming of Mpesa Servers from Germany back to Kenya. This was another masquerade to the country into believing there was a fair exchange. The plot was to shift the servers to a new G2 Platform as a guise for siphoning money via the Chinese, and restructure Mpesa intellectual property under new terms. Documents show Agreements were made by Safaricom and G2 Platform supplier under the VPC (Vodafone Procurement Company) 3rd party, a Chinese company Huawei was roped in to facilitate syphoning 30 billion into shell accounts in Luxembourg. (Source: Nairobi Monthly Magazine June edition.)
Needless to say, the timing of these events just before elections is suspect.
Friends in High Places
Not many people are aware of the strong link between Safaricom, Mpesa and State House. It’s a circle of regulators and Kenya’s top elites designed to shield the cash cow from interference. The cow must be milked!
Together, they pull strings to entrench the green brand that has now become culture. A conspiracy at high government levels took all the powers of the Communications Authority. Virtually, every regulator has been secured in Safaricom’s back pocket – the Competitions Authority of Kenya, the Central Bank of Kenya and the ICT Ministry.
Effectively, no institution in Kenya has the teeth or commitment to rope in Safaricom’s excessive sway in Kenya.
The roots of Safaricom are deep rooted in the political figures of the 90s. Ex-President Moi, Nicholas Biwott and unknown associates were linked to owning 12.5% of Safaricom via the infamous Mobitelea. “Its [Mobitelea] owners include politicians from the former government who may have used their influence to facilitate Vodafone’s original $20m investment in Safaricom in 2000. At that stage, Kenya’s regime had become a byword for corruption, with politicians amassing vast wealth.”
Today, the mantle has been passed on to their ilk. The children continue to eat and the dance is kept on.
Like, Ex-Safaricom executive Waita, a learned lawyer who rose through the ranks of Safaricom. He is now firmly set at State House as Deputy State House Chief of staff and head of Public Service. This broad mandate puts him in charge of the President’s Delivery Unit, Office of Budget Management, Performance Contracting and Oversight Office and State Corporations Oversight Office.
President Kenyatta, Nzioka Waita and Bob Collymore promoting an Mpesa product.
Until recently, Mshwari, a mobile lending facility, was the only product allowed on Safaricom’s Mpesa Menu. Commercial Bank of Africa accounts went up from 34,884 in 2011 to 10 million accounts. M-shwari single-handedly propelled the bank from a mid-tier bank in 2013, to a Tier 1 bank all through billions of mobile loan sharking via Mpesa. Yesterday, CBA expanded into Uganda to offer MoKash, a Ugandan version of Mshwari. CBA has the same product in Tanzania with Vodafone.
Now, what most people do not know is that Commercial Bank of Africa is partly owned by the Kenyatta family and close associates. It has reaped enormous benefits from the success of Mpesa and Safaricom. President Kenyatta’s former lawyer Desterio Oyatsi is at the helm of the board as chairman. The president’s younger brother, Muhoho is the Deputy Chairman of Commercial Bank of Africa.
With all these powerful people with ties to Safaricom, no wonder it is untouchable.
Back in London, Vodafone executives are happy cheer on the show.
Just when you thought extrajudicial killings by the police would cease with the brutal murder of lawyer Willie Kimani who was killed alongside his client and the taxi driver, more terror continue to be unleashed by the same force.
A 27-year-old deceased man identified as Ngandi Malia Musyemi was being treated of gunshot wounds sustained earlier on Wednesday night at around 8 pm when the officers reportedly followed him to the hospital and finished him off at 3 am.
Two police officers have since been arrested in this respect. One of the officers is reported to have laid wait outside as his colleague accomplished the mission, sending panic at the hospital where other patients were admitted.
“The deceased had earlier recounted to police how he was hijacked at Majengo area in Kitui, blindfolded and taken to a thicket at Sosoma junction where he was shot in the head and left ribs,” a senior police officer said of the incident that occurred off the Mwingi-Garissa Highway.
An investigation has since shown that it is the two police officers who had hijacked him earlier and shot him, leaving him in a critical condition before he was assisted to hospital by passers-by, according to police.
“He is accused of being a robber and was under investigation for some murder cases, including a police officer’s child,” a detective said, but could not confirm if the child belonged to any of the two officers arrested or if there was any conspiracy to have the suspect killed.
Ngandi Musyemi, 26, was admitted to the facility on Wednesday with bullet injuries after he was carjacked in Majengo, Kitui town at 8.30am while in the company of a female friend.
The attackers claimed they were police officers and forced him into their white car.
“He was blindfolded and forced to sleep facing down, driven to Ukasi area where they shot him several times,” Musyemi’s sister said.
“They then left thinking that he was dead, only for him to struggle to the main highway and call for help from good Samaritans who took him to Ukasi health centre. From there, the police took him to Mwingi general hospital,” she added.
She said the family is yet to understand why his brother was not guarded by police, despite the fact that he was a patient nursing gunshot wounds.
Musyemi – a second-hand shoes dealer in Kitui – was hospitalised after he was shot at the back of the head and at the left cheek, as well as the left ribs.
The sister said the assailants were permitted to enter the hospital at 8pm, which is past the authorised visiting hours.
“They hid in the hospital until 3am when they completed their mission,” she said.
“Though he was in great pain he was conscious since he was talking,” Musyimi’s sister said.
Meanwhile, Musyimi’s sister Sharlyne Malia who witnessed his brother being shot dead in his hospital bed has claimed that the men who killed her brother are after her.
On Saturday morning, she slithered out of a family meeting at Kathiani village in Kitui West, after claiming that two men came looking for her.
Mr Musyimi’s family claims he is a victim of extrajudicial killings.
“My brother was picked up by police from his house and was first taken to Kitui Police Station. Later he was brutally killed. They must tell us why they killed him,” said Nicholas Mukando.
The officers thought to have killed Musyimi and in realising he wasn’t dead, followed him to the hospital where they pumped 17 bullets to his body allt these in the full glare of the sister. Being a crictical witness, the sister need to be put on witness protection immediately.
Extrajudicial Killings have heightened in recent times and it’s high time theDCI Muhoro who’s heading the killer unit to take responsibility and resign since he’s unable to stop the senseless killings. The killing of this gentleman must cost as much concerns as that of Willie and rest of police brutality. There need to be a stop into this madness.
The United State’s Secretary of States was in the Country from 22nd August meeting with the President, opposition and sections of the Civil Society. The need to improve business relations, boost counter-terrorism measures, increased corruption in the government, a highrise in drug trafficking to the US from Kenya and stabilise the region from civil war are the key reasons Kerry was in town.
While the President was hosting Kerry in Statehouse, Nairobi, his counterpart DP Ruto was forced to change his plans last minute by travelling to Mombasa. According to a diplomatic source talking to Kenya Insights, Kerry had given clear instructions to the protocol handlers and the US Ambassador that they must ensure the DP doesn’t get anywhere close to him given his reputation.
US Secretary of State John Kerry (back to camera centre) when he met Opposition chiefs led by Cord principal Raila Odinga in Nairobi on August 22, 2016. Mr Odinga was accompanied by his co-principals, Mr Kalonzo Musyoka and Mr Moses Wetang’ula, Amani Coalition leader Musalia Mudavadi and Narc Kenya’s Martha Karua.
On giving his conditions, Statehouse was told were forced to find a quick way to hide the dark cloud hanging and to avoid embarrassment, decided that instead, Ruto tour Mombasa where the President was scheduled to travel in the next days.
According to the source confiding in Kenya Insights, the Secretary of State, didn’t want to be pictured or see near him the DP citing his corruption links, “the DP is named in most if not all graft cases and the boss didn’t want to get close to him and ordered that we ensure he’s kept as far away from him at all costs.”
This was a last minute communication prompting the unplanned trip by the DP who went on an extensive Coast tour ahead of Kerry’s visit in a strategic move to dupe the sceptical public. This isn’t the first time protocol was having hitches when the US President Obama visited Kenya last year, and there were speculations that DP was ordered to keep away and had to take the intervention of the President who insisted Ruto had to be on the table and delegation receiving and seeing him off.
Ruto’s impromptu visit to Coast coincided with Mr Odinga’s starts his tour in Taita-Taveta County on Wednesday. President Uhuru was slotted to visit Mombasa on Thursday to open a Law Society of Kenya conference.
KTN Investigation Chief Editor, Mohammed Ali, Jicho Pevu.
The fearless and defiant KTN Investigation Senior Editor and the Pioneer of Jicho Pevu investigations series popularly known as Moha on Thursday escaped a death trap laid on him.
According toinformation gathered by Kenya Insights, the journalist had been trailed by unmarked car from CBD where he was at the I&M building all the way to Bunyala Road, Nyayo Stadium driving to the Standard Groups Hq along Mombasa road.
While the traffic stalled aroundNyayo Stadium, an assailant riding on a bike rode past Mohammed’s car pointing a gun at his window in what is a clear death scare before moving away. We’re told the masked rider warned Moha against sticking his nose too far.
This incident come only two days after the series ran a story how since the assassination of Jacob Juma reportedly by unknown assailants in motorbike, six more people linked to his death have been killed by the police under unexplainable circumstances. The defiant journalist while speaking to Kenya Insights insists he will continue with his work undeterred by whichever forces. “I’ve seen worse, I only fear God,we live once and die once” said Moha.
His assassination scare also coming at a time when his piece in extrajudicial killings is receiving massive viewership in international media, Al Jazeera. Police in Kenya according to many independent reports has been accused of conducting unlawful killings.
Kenya Insights has embarked on an in-depth investigation into the underworld operations of Kenya’s biggest telecom, Safaricom, in the first episode of the eight series of investigative pieces, we look into Bitpesa. BitPesa, a promising company, founded in 2013 was first to market using a groundbreaking global payments transfer technology, the Bitcoin Blockchain. Bitcoin blockchain technology, is completely open source, threatens Safaricom’s cross-border money transfer partnerships. A Citi Bank report came out last month citing this technology as highly disruptive in African cross-border payments. Again, Safaricom took to its tried and tested dirty tricks to move fast and shut down the service before it gained traction.
BitPesa’s business model allows customers (businesses and individuals) from both abroad and in Kenya, to send and receive money internationally instantly from your mobile phone. The company chose to use Bitcoin blockchain. Customers based overseas and in Kenya would send bitcoin to Bitpesa and Bitpesa would pay out Mpesa. Or Customers would send Mpesa to Bitpesa, and they received Bitcoin.
A brilliant idea! Joe Mucheru, a renowned successful tech entrepreneur and current ICT Cabinet Secretary was the first investors in the company board. The man has seen it all. From his vast experience building Wananchi, a million dollar Internet Service Provider, and later as a top boss at Google. He immediately saw the value in leveraging an emerging technology to capture the $1.2 billion remittance market now dominated by foreign companies. He put in 40 million KES, 50% of BitPesa’s 70,000,000 seed capital.
All was going well.
Lipisha Consortium Limited, a payment gateway service firm, was contracted by BitPesa to automate the in and outs of Mpesa. For this purpose, it was necessary to sign up for Safaricom’s PayBill API service. The lack of proper APIs in Kenya highlighted earlier, means running a payment gateway is a tightly controlled affair for a privileged few. For example, few companies get all the contracts and are wholly dependent on Safaricom for revenue. This is what Safaricom to have a tight grasp of who, how and when technology companies can access the platform. Lipisha is one of these few privileged companies.
ICT Principal Secretary Sammy Itemere, CS Joe Mucheru with Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore
Over one and half years, the company began getting outstanding traction. BitPesa went on to raise another $1.2 million to expand its operations in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria. It immediately got attention from numerous publications on. A Citi Bank report hailed BitPesa for using blockchain technology, for solving Kenya’s poor cross-border payments infrastructure problem. According to sources, by December 2015, the company was moving as much as $400,000 in volumes monthly.
Safaricom could not help but notice BitPesa’s high volumes moving in and out. From its internal servers, Safaricom could see BitPesa’s transactions on customers’ Mpesa accounts. Volumes were going up, and the number of customers was growing.
Safaricom had good reason to worry. The company’s partnerships with foreign money transfer operators earn them a tonne of fees and entrenches Mpesa the brand. Xoom, PayPal, Skrill, Western Union and Worldremit currently have arranged partnerships. So, it was only a matter of time before Safaricom swooped in once more as they have done in the past.
Using its muscle, Safaricom demanded an urgent meeting with SpotCash, a partner company that relies 100% on business from Mpesa. SpotCash had signed up BitPesa Ltd. on its PayBill services via Lipisha Consortium Ltd. The company called insubordinate employees at Spot Cash’s service desk and immediately threatened to cut off ongoing services to the enterprise if the matter was not handled promptly. Sources reveal the tone was harsh and threatening.
Spot cash could do little but oblige. The company immediately shut off the service, triggering what would wind up in High court as a lawsuit for improper termination of services. Safaricom’s sway and monopoly had reared its ugly head again.
Is Bitcoin a Threat to Safaricom’s Mpesa Cash Cow?
For Safaricom, shutting down BitPesa was an attack on a potential threat, and had little to do with any existing law. Asking to see a license from CBK, of which none existed was conniving. BitPesa had not broken any Kenyan law and had taken all prudential measures to align itself with the law.
As a young potentially disruptive start-up company grows up, it begins to get noticed by established companies. This is always a great milestone in any young company’s life. Should the established companies partner with the start-up? Should they copy it? Should they close their eyes and wait to see if the start-up withers? Or, should they try and squash it?
Safaricom’s argument in court, against Bitpesa, was the same argument made by Kenyan Banks to stop Mpesa when it was launched in 2006. Back then, Kenyan Banks argued Safaricom was operating as a bank without appropriate licenses. They called for Mpesa to be banned from operating.
“Banks were publicly grumbling for some time that the playing field was not level for them and that Safaricom was taking on banking business without the appropriate license.”
At the time, Mpesa was unregulated. There was also no regulatory precedence to look up to. The Central Bank of Kenya gave a nod to proceed while monitoring.
Today, the same Banks that argued against it, now depend on it for their operations.
Fast forward to 2016 and the tables have turned. Safaricom is like the Kenyan Banks of yesteryears and now wants to shut down another budding technology, Bitcoin Blockchain.
“Safaricom claimed that Bitpesa had failed to obtain authorization for bitcoin transfers from Kenya’s central bank. Bitcoins are not regulated in Kenya, but Safaricom insists that it produces a licence to that effect.”
Bitcoin drastically lowers the cost of sending money anywhere in the world for free. There are no hidden or varying charges on Bitcoin like Mpesa. There is no license fee required to use the Bitcoin Blockchain like with Mpesa. Any company, big or small can tap into its open technology. Because it is highly disruptive, it potentially eats up what would be Mpesa’s market. Vodafone executives and Safaricom recognised this and came down hard on BitPesa.
In fact, this is not the first time Safaricom has clamped down on a Bitcoin Blockchain company.
Kipochi, another Bitcoin Blockchain company, set up in Kenya in February of 2013. Their plan was to enable interoperable payments between vendors using blockchain. Headed by CEO Pelle Braendgaard, the company set out on developing a prototype, Kipochi Pay.
Kipochi first integrated with Mpesa for testing out the product among a limited set of user, in-house staff. The prototype worked well enough to show the Central Bank of Kenya and local Telecommunication companies what was possible with the technology. It solved the interoperability problem that plagued Kenyan Banks and Mobile money operators. It did not matter that you were on Airtel, Orange, Mpesa or a bank. You could send money for the same price to anyone.
Just like Bitpesa, the company had to partner with a local Mpesa payment gateway. Kopo Kopo was one of the few payments gateways that had permission from Safaricom. Again, like BitPesa, Kipochi got massive coverage from the global press.
Elizabeth Rossiello, BitPesa CEO
The events that followed were all too familiar. Within a week or two, Kipochi’s connection with M-Pesa through Kopo Kopo was shut down abruptly without notice. It took Pelle more than a week to find out that Safaricom had forced Kopo Kopo to shut them down. Sources later revealed that the order to choke them off came from Vodafone in London. Vodafone Executives were up in arms over the attention the company was getting.
Speaking to Pelle and Kipochi, they revealed they had informal meetings with the Central Bank of Kenya, who called them in to find out who they were, what they were up to and what the hell Bitcoin was. Officials at the CBK seemed knowledgeable and gave them an informal green light to continue as long as they partnered with existing financial institutions or Telcos.
Despite Central Bank regulators being wide open to new money transfer and online payments technology, Safaricom would hear none of it. They stifled the project by essentially cutting off the channel access to customers. Kipochi’s USSD Bitcoin wallet required access to servers in racks at local telcos. The approval process took months, as Safaricom dragged out the affair.
In a well-documented documentary film titled ‘Mpesa has no Competition’ on Bitcoin and Mpesa’s clash in Kenya, Pelle cited Safaricom pressured regulators.
Kipochi was eventually forced to close shop after operating in Kenya for more than a year. In his last interview with a local newspaper detailing Safaricom and Mpesa’s dominance, Pelle said “digital currencies can help drive financial inclusion and inter-link mobile money platforms for easy access anywhere around the world. Bitcoin can solve interoperability between mobile money providers both within Kenya and throughout the world.”
As for Petition 502 of 2015, BitPesa and Lipisha Consortium Ltd. lost the case. On 14th December At Milimani Law Courts, Justice Joseph Onguto ruled in favour of Safaricom, saying
“The Commercial Agreement between Lipisha Consortium and Safaricom reveals that Safaricom could suspend, not terminate the services it offers to the plaintiff, even without notice and for any valid reason.”
In the weeks that followed, the Central Bank of Kenya issued a public notice on Bitcoins in Kenya. The CBK clarified bitcoin and virtual currencies in Kenya were not illegal, and Kenyans were free to choose to buy, sell or hold Bitcoin. But the damage had been done. It was too late.
Corruption and impunity are the greatest economic progress that Kenya is faced with in recent history. Incompetence in office has seen our athletes embarrassed and suffered in Rio during the Olympics, thankfully, the useless Noc-K has been disbanded.
For the past weeks, Kenya Insights has been highlighting the fraud story of one Steven Githaiga, MD Tana and Athi River Authority(TARDA) a parastatal that is being run down the drain by this selfish and arrogant figure. He did not only change his birthdates from 1953 to 1958 but also forced rather self-appointed himself to the MD position without undergoing the normal recruitment process of public office. According to information we’ve gathered, Githaiga was the acting MD since 2009 until 2013 when Jubilee got into power and him liaised with Uhuru’s Cousin Muigai, Githaiga forged around and forced himself into the office without the usual competitive process, this is illegal in all terms.
Abuse of office has become the norm of Githaiga from open and disturbing tribal appointments. On getting into office, he appointed his entire family and clan and just like how he got into office, they were irregularly recruited without any interview let alone advertisement and there wasn’t Boards approval. It’s said, he holds the public office by the balls and anyone who dares coughs is squeezed.
Masinga Dam Project which is to be constructed at a tune of Sh.6B has been Gitthaiga’s latest fraud scheme, and tragedy has rocked his plans since Treasury has refused to approve funds. With his embezzling nature, Githaiga had already approached Chinese Construction Cartel for the construction of his dam. They even bribed him with his current V8 car as a tip to be awarded the tender. Talking of cars, Githaiga stole from TARDA a LandRover Discovery Reg No. KAD 266D which he sold to current National Assembly Speaker, Justin Muturi who doubles as his closest friend.
Githaiga’s relationship with Muturi explains why the unresolved issues on audited accounts for TARDA F/Y 2013/2014 have never been handled despite having been tabled to the Public Investment Committee several times with latest being this year, 30th March. It were unfortunate that the speaker could have used his position to block out the petition and opted to protect his friend and if anything, Muturi himself is a beneficiary of the Githaiga’s looting since he sold him the car.
His original and faked ID
The charlatan MD boasts of high places protection, walks around town shoulders high that despite all the glaring discrepancies and fraud deals he’s running, nothing will ever happen to him amplifying the impunity levels he operates on. Githaiga from our moles boasts to his peers that the Deputy President, William Ruto who’s office was recently polled as the most corrupt in Jubilee Government is his partner in crime and that they’ve together cut some dirty deals. He says Ruto will protect him whichever way and will stay in office despite the magnitude of accusations raised against him.
TARDA was initially under Environment Ministry but has since been moved to the Devolution Ministry under Mwangi Kiunjuri who again happens to be a buddy to the muddy MD Githaiga, and he also boasts to his peers that Kiunjuri has promised him security and gave him go ahead to embezzle as much as he can but play smart. Githaiga loud to his friends that his boss Mwangi Kiunjuri who inherited a scandals marred ministry has promised him security what type of system is this that promotes thuggery. The CS should be ashamed for associating himself with such a fraudulent character who is looting in his name. He therefore, must move with speed to weed out criminal elements like Githaiga frauding in his office, Kenya Insights will be committed to see action come from this office.
Githaiga, we gather has not been in his offices in the last two weeks since Kenya Insights started exposing him. You know they say the guilty are restless, well, the cornered MD has been operating between City Hotels like a typical City wheeler-dealer. He has deployed security men guarding his office for fear of being thrown out. Security officials nearly arrested him and escaped by a whisker. How can a government office be shut for that long? This is undermining service delivery and incompetence of the highest order. State offices should be open and accessible to offices throughout the official hours. Why then should Githaiga be allowed to run a government’s body just the way he so wishes?
A security sleuth has confided to Kenya Insights, that the disturbed MD has resorted to spying on his staff working with criminal officers, tapping their phone communications. He’s desperate to find out who amongst them released the confidential documents to Kenya Insights wasting his energy forgetting the files are publicly available at the Parliament’s Premises. You really can’t blame a man who faked his birth dates to increase years in employment, forged his ways to be a lecturer at USIU without standard credential(USIU has since responded to our previous issue that Githaiga didn’t meet lecturer standards, they’ve confirmed he was there but has since left, Faculty is following up on the issue, and we’ve also forwarded his name to MATIANGI AS ONE OF QUACK lecturers FLOCKING THE uNIVERSITIES)
Mr. Steven Githaiga Ruimuku. Managing Director TARDA
As Government gears to do a clean sweep on corruption as said by the principals, all parastatals need to be investigated as it seems, they’re bedrocks of corruption and impunity, and Jubilee has nothing to lose other than integrity by retaining open frauds as Githaiga in public office. He’s not only illegally in his position but also receiving the pension from the same government from his previous job, what kind of madness is this. He has perfectly silenced EACC(whose CEO Waqo is a cousin to TARDA Chairman) CID, ODPP. This madness of jungle ruling needs to come to an end. Kenya Insights will continue following the issue till an impeachable solution which is getting the fraud officer from the public office and a competitive process launched to get a competent director.
TARDA is on the brink of collapsing, and President jumps to the rescue. Its trouble was trusting such a high office that needs exquisite managerial skills with someone who has only a P1 Certificate from Mosoriot Teachers College and forged the rest of his credentials.
Face of Noc-K incompetence. Kipchoge missed out on his bottle at the dehydration point. No Kenyan official was there to hand him his bottle while other athletes were given theirs. He went ahead and won gold.
The end to the unending fiasco, dramas of the Olympic organising body Noc-K is far from being over. The Athletes Village in Rio has been officially closed forcing the Kenyan athletes who are still in Brazil to seek accommodation in other elsewhere.
Kenya which had the most medals in the Olympics amongst African Countries and second Worldwide, instead of being treated to royal amenities, were scrolled out by the corrupt Noc-K to some downtown Hotel that even a rag sack prostitute wouldn’t roam to spend the remainder of their days in Brazil.
Wesley Kipkorir the MP also Rio athlete highlighted the issue on his Twitter page
We learn the athletes refused to disembark from the Bus having seen the pathetic conditions of the hotel. How could the committee decide on taking the precious athletes to such a dark place while the Government released Sh.600M for the athletes but was unfortunately squandered by Joyriders? These MPs and rest of Joyriders at the expense of the athletes enjoyed top of the world treatment, spending their days in top class hotels while doing nothing, and now the same Noc-K couldn’t organise for the deserving athletes to be treated in the same or even higher class hotels.
Why is Noc-K trying so hard to kill the spirits of the athletes and eventually Sports as a whole, they’re going further to expose these champions to Zuka Virus in the heavily mosquito infested hotels like the frustrations they’ve been subjected to ain’t enough. Noc-K is a sham of a body that has brought shame to this Country and must be dealt with at the infant stage. People have to pack their bags and move out, preferably, to jail.
Mr. Steven Githaiga Ruimuku. Managing Director TARDA
Just when you thought you’d heard enough dramas and fraud stories in Kenya, there’s always a new one cropping. Kenya Insights has for the past weeks sustained a course to expose on Steven Githaiga who is in the parastatal office with forged documents. Changed his dates of birth from 1953 to 1958 for the simple reason of increasing his employment years by five with the core aim of milking dry the Tana & Athi Rivers Development Authority.
From investigations laid by Kenya Insights, the cheating MD has illegally leased large tracts of public land under his office with the help of his private lawyer to other people. We will expound much on this in subsequent items. From earning salary illegally now accruing to over Sh.30M, Githaiga stands at the centre of the heap of swindling deals that have left the parastatal dry and broke hanging on strings before it eventually dies.
Kenya Insights has reached the relevant authorities to address this matter and save the parastatal from the carnivorous teeth of this charlatan but deaf years have been turned. It’s only a question of time before operations are stall since accounts are viciously mismanaged by the scam MD.
Githaiga is walking around chest thumping that he’s untouchable and that his close ties with the Deputy President William Ruto whom he openly say he loots with, will protect him. Comes at a time when the DP’s office has been polled as the leading arm in corruption. Githaiga also boasts of having protection from the President’s cousin Muigai. We are going to petition these people including Speaker of Parliament Justin Muturi who also happens to be his friend and whom he fraudulently sold to the Land Rover Discovery Reg. No KAD 266D at a throw away price after stealing it from TARDA. We will expose the faces he purports to be saving him and that he’s so untouchable.
United States International University-Africa, Nairobi. (Pic Courtesy)
Moving on, through our investigations, it is emerging that Githaiga who self-appointed himself to the TARDA MD post without any scrutiny and using his links with Muigai happens to be a lecturer at USIU and has registered for a PhD at the Catholic Univeristy. It beats logic how with all the deficiencies in his credentials the man manoeuvred to be a whole lecturer in an international accredited University as USIU. How could the scrutiny of this institution miss this? This puts USIU’s credibility in line and quality of education in jeopardy if a person with underwhelming credits is awarded the position to lecture students.
From the documents seen by Kenya Insights, the only certificate by Githaiga that can be approved is that of Mosoriot TTC where he went for his P1 course, the rest that he used to attain the USIU job can’t be certified. Our investigations led to USIU where efforts to get his details as the lecturer were turned down with a sleuth revealing he teaches in Business department yet his certificates are highly questionable.
USIU management must, therefore, take the matter with the agency it deserves and relook on his credentials because from the looks they’re subjecting their students to substandard education and at the same time jeopardising their credibility and public trust. Kenya Insights will, therefore, follow the vetting process of Githaiga. In fact, this case should worry USIU management and order a complete vetting on all their lecturers to out masquerades.
In our flowing series on TARDA looting and Githaiga’s frauds schemes, we look into the illegal lands leasing, Chairman TARDA Abdul Bahari, a relative to EACC CEO Waqo and has been protecting the MD and at the same time eyeing gubernatorial seat botched multi-billion Dam project and the high personalities defending the fraud MD. Meanwhile, we’re petitioning and daring USIU to prove Kenya Insights wrong by proof of certificates that they’re using a dubious lecturer on their students.
Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero and Senator Mike Sonko both are on public record supporting the traders but nothing substantive has been forthcoming from them to see the developers stop construction.
Two weeks down the line after the Ombudsman released their investigations report on a contested land in Eastleigh that has been taken by Alfa Traders, the developers of an upcoming mall. Traders that were forcefully displaced from the land to give way for construction logged a complaint with the Ombudsman to determine the truth in the squabble.
The report found that the Alfa Traders illegally acquired the land by making the scrupulous deal with corrupt City Hall officials and that the lease that they’re holding onto for ownership is fake. As a recommendation, the CAJ directed Kidero as the custodian of the piece of land to repossess it and also the traders be compensated Sh150,000 each for the losses incurred during the demolitions of their stalls when Alfa Traders stormed in.
Kidero was directed to give a cessation notice to the traders, and that they immediately stop construction, the part of the building up should henceforth be demolished. The corrupt City Hall officials facilitating the land grabbing cartel include Nelson Otido, he unlawfully executed the lease documents for the fraudulent Alfa Traders MDsAli Sheikh Mohamud and Farah Mohamed Barrow.
Isaac Nyoike, Chief Valuer, is one the most corrupt figures in the Office and primarily aiding land grabbing in the City. Ombudsman directed Kidero to fire him. Karisa Iha, Director, Legal Affairs, abused office and breached public trust making him and the rest of the quack officials unfit to hold positions. These officials are the pillars of land grabbing amongst other dirty deals in the City which is biting off the cake.
Governor Kidero, the backstops with him, and no restrictions are stopping him from repossessing the piece of land and ordering an overhaul of land records to weed out the dubious land deals. The question is the governor ready to tackle the mess or simply do media appearances that he’s fighting the cartel yet nothing positive in action is forthcoming. Nairobi, voter, is a critical and watchful being, getting away with everything is no longer a possibility. At the end of the day, people will ask what did you do, how did you deal with corruption cartel apart from press releases.
Sonko, the City’s Senator, has less if nothing to show when it comes to policies crafting, his senatorial performances are not only weak but nothing memorable apart from physical fights with Kidero. He is also missing in action from not only the Eastleigh land grab but from many public land grabbings in the City, unlike his previous trademark of being front row with the public fighting for their rights.
Construction is still on, developers going on without any hitch despite the lawful directives. This equals an endorsement of unlawful operations by the governor himself. He has the authority to put to an end the never ending tag of war.
Reports doing rounds that three people were arrested by the police over extortion plot from a business deal in the house up the hill. The two men based at the Statehouse mutually with a police officer were plotting to get Sh.200M as the kickback from a businessman who was seeking the audience with the president over a Sh30B tender.
According to a source at Statehouse talking to Kenya Insights, the two officers based at the procurement offices are identified as Mumu and Kiprop and the Police officers unnamed.
The trio was on NIS radar for sometimes and on fateful day, flying squad officers were deployed just when they were set to receive the millions from the businessman. President Uhuru himself has admitted his Office is one of the most corrupt departments in the government and has been trying to straighten the curves. The latest incident is a good gesture in the right track.
From history, dubious businessmen conspire with state officials to get away with unethical business practices as tax evasion. The procurement department in the Office of the President is one of the filthiest with the 10% syndrome being at an all time real. Corruption is high in these offices that to score a tender, and you have to part with 10% of the tender value.
In the year 2012/2013, one individual in the Office of the President – a Mr Ben Kihia – withdrew Sh2.85 billion from public coffers, for alleged confidential expenditure in the military. The PAC report says the transfer of funds was unauthorised and irregular, the expenditure unexplained and unaccounted for. The man withdrawing the Sh2.85 billion had no authority to do so. Confidential expenditure of this kind was the reserve of the NIS, CID and GSU. Yet this individual singularly generated, examined, approved and made the withdrawals.
On February 26, 2013, alone, he withdrew Sh130 million. On his own, right people! The Office of the President gave him a certificate of clearance. Nobody knows what he did with your money! Now consider that this man has since been transferred to the Ministry of Industrialisation. But he has defied the transfer and remained in the Office of the President.
Corruption in this office has been since time in history, and President Kenyatta was aware when he took over. However, inheriting a corrupt system, the President doesn’t have any justification for not dot a total overhaul unless he’s approving that the cartel is stronger than him.
Booking for an audience with the president is a munching venture, corrupt Statehouse operatives use this opening to extort from mostly potential investors and other business related guests. This is an unfortunate reality that can be attested to by those who’ve undergone and also the latest victim who was to part with Sh200M just to booked for a meeting with the President.
The Kenyan athletes representing the country has in the entire competition been faced with endless problems and avoidable mishaps courtesy of incompetency with NOC-K who have been blamed for the predicaments.
The team has faced travel and accreditation challenges among other problems as it emerged that some Senators are wallowing in luxury in posh hotels in Brazil at the expense of the Kenyan tax payer. As the athletes strain themselves, legislators including 21 MPs are blowing a cool Sh.3.2M each as an allowance for the 21 days during the Olympics, and that’s Sh.50,000 daily. That’s away from the travel expenses.
Below is a list Kenya Insights has obtained of the NOCK officials sent to the games. Note that there are those in the trip at taxpayers expense but have not been included in the list. Includes officials kids and clandestine. STEERING COMMITTEE NAME ORGANIZATION ROLL
1 Amb Richard Ekai Principal Secretary Sports
2 Joseph Okundo Principle Secretary Culture
3 Kipchoge Keino Chairman NOCK
4 Francis K Paul Secretary General NOCK
5 James Waweru Chairman ADAK
6 Japhter Rugut CEO ADAK
7 Jackson Tuwei President AK
8 Nderitu Gikaria Chairman KNSC
9 Fred Muteti Chairman Sports Kenya
10 Samuel Njonde Chairman Sports Fund
11 Gordon Olouch Ag. Director General Sports Kenya
12 Jaxon Indakwa Ag. Director General Sports Fund
13 James S Kinyanjui Legal Officer
14 Sharad Rao Legal Officer TREASURY
15 Francis Anyona Oino Controller of Budgets
16 Peter Muhia Wanjiku Desk officer MOSCA CHEF DE MISSION
17 Stephen Arap Soi NOCK CENTRAL MANAGEMENT
18 Bernard Ekumbo Deputy CDM (NOCK)
19 James Chacha Executive Officer (NOCK)
20 Fridah Shiroya Finance Officer (NOCK)
21 Pius Ochieng General Team Manager (NOCK)
22 Julius Ogeto Chief Medical Officer
23 Patrick Nkabu Finance Officer (Ministry)
24 Cathrine Ndereba Deputy GTM (NOCK)
25 Resham Bains NOCK
26 Anna Njambi Documentation Officer (NOCK)
27 Peter Angwenyi Media Liasion officer (NOCK)
28 Christopher Lorot
29 Joseph Kiget
30 William Yiampoy
31 Lydia Kamau
32 Maurine Mutuku
33 Dorothy Otieno
34 Peter Ekai
35 Wesly Maritim
36 Lamech Oriku
37 Abdullahi Omar
Senators
Stewart Madzayo (Taita Taveta)
Martha Wangari (nominated)
Godfrey Kariuki (Nakuru),
Karue Muraguri (Nyandarua)
Joy Gwendo (nominated)
Mvita Kisasa Mshenga (nominated)
Abdirahman Ali (Wajir)
John Munyes (Turkana)
Halima Abdille (nominated).
We’re yet to get the list of the MPs but will update as soon as we get it. One is left wondering what was the urgency that Kenya had to fly out almost entire parliament to Rio. What values would they be adding to the players if not milking their kitty? The millions used in accommodating the joyriders doing nothing meaningful but random escapades could’ve been used to add more monetary value to the medals won by athletes.
Treasury gave Sh.600M to NOCK for the competition and from the looks nearly three-quarters has been spent on the joyriders, squandered with players getting a struggling quarter of their allocations. This trend of scavenging and eating off other’s sweat is not only sickening but puts Kenya in the books of shame for mistreating their players, and you wonder why athletes are not taking a second thought in auctioning their citizenship to countries like Bahrain who treat them better.
If it were so important for Parliament to witness and make a report out of the competition then why not send a handful even one MP instead of the bunch sent. This is an open misuse of public funds, the extravagance adding to the already heavy debt burden to the taxpayer must be discouraged. Sports CS owes Kenyans answers and the values added by spending millions on the undeserving joy riders
Between 21-22nd of Aug, the US Secretary of States John Kerry will lead a delegation for a diplomatic visit to Kenya. Amongst the topics lined up for the US Secretary of States John Kerry is to pile pressure on Kenyan authorities to undertake serious electoral reforms, which are key to future stability. Diplomatic sources said the move by Mr Kerry to visit Kenya is part of efforts to push for the major shift in the way things are done locally.
Whitehouse feels major agreements reached with Statehouse last July when President Barack Obama visited are yet to be implemented. The agreements were key in the war on drug trafficking and corruption. “There is concern that the agreements are yet to be executed by Kenyan authorities hence his coming. He will also raise other issues,” said an informed source.
According to Statehouse in Nairobi, Matters expected to be discussed include security, regional and international relations and especially, the recent upheaval in our northern neighbour South Sudan as well as Somalia.
However, impeccable sources privy to this visit tell Kenya Insights that Kerry’s visit has a lot more to do with the war on drugs, sources said the US government is concerned that there’s an increased cases of the drugs seized in America passing through Kenya.
Numerous reports, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report of 2011, have cited Mombasa as a region that is increasingly being used as a transit hub for narcotics on the global circuit. In September 2011, the International Peace Institute reported that profits from the illicit drug trade had infiltrated Kenyan politics, linking officials to international cocaine and heroin smuggling rings.
On August 28, 2014, Uhuru supervised the destruction of Iranian-flagged Mv Bushehr which was impounded with 377kg of heroin worth Sh1.3 billion. The suspects arrested on board, all foreigners, were denied bail and are still on trial in Mombasa. The vessel was impounded by Kenya’s naval forces with the assistance of foreign navies off the coast of Lamu and dragged to Mombasa mid-2013.
One year later, on August 14, 2015, the military also blew up a Singaporean-registered luxury yacht off the Mombasa coast, which police said was found stuffed with narcotics. Anti-narcotics detectives estimated the heroin seized on the yacht, Mv Baby Iris, to be worth Sh20 million. Initially, police in Mombasa claimed the vessel, whose Seychellois captain Clement Serge Bristol is among suspects on trial, ferried tourists between Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Madagascar.
Police also named claimed the yacht’s British owner had been summoned from London, but it is not clear if he was ever interrogated. The largest drug haul to be made in Kenya’s history involved the capture in 2004 of cocaine worth Sh5.3 billion in Malindi. The seizure became a matter of legendary police missteps that led to the acquittal of most suspects, a murder of police officers involved in the case and the alleged disappearance of part of the haul during its “destruction”.
In October 2013, a Lithuanian national, Kudrika Gytis and a Kenyan national, Anna Muthoni, were arrested at Wananchi Hotel in Ganjoni area with heroin worth Sh49 million after their partner, Reikumas Ricards, their alleged accomplice, was found death in his hotel room, apparently from a drug overdose.
Tom Wolf, the British Aristocrat, is the latest suspect be swallowed in the growing syndicate. A ship carrying over an estimated Sh2B worth of Cocaine was impounded at the Mombasa Ports last month and was linked to Tom’s Company.
The Ship Mysteriously disappeared, and the whereabouts of the confiscated drugs are unknown. Tom together along other suspects were arrested and charged with drug trafficking. The suspects have been held behind bars.
In a sharp twist, Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) a bank associated with Kenyatta’s family has given a surety of up Sh.140M as bond for the release of Tom Wolf. The move by CBA has attracted sharp criticism from Uhuru’s critics saying he’s protecting the drugs trafficking syndicate. This was evident in the Trending Topic #CocaineBankCBA on Twitter for a good part of Friday morning.
Mr Steven Githaiga Ruimuku. Managing Director TARDA
In our initial release of this scandal, we detailed how the crooked TARDA MD faked his dates of birth reducing it by five years just to serve longer on Government. We’ve also highlighted how he had misappropriated funds going up to Sh.200M in his tenure. We’ve also highlighted on the open nepotism and tribal appointments that have become the order of the day at the State’s authority.
Steven Githaiga Maina Passport number A383456 as he was formerly known and according to National Registrar Bureau, changed his identity to Steven Githaiga Ruimuku Passport number A593455 distorting his date of birth from 1953 to 1958. This was a ploy to reduce his age and increase five more years to his years in service. It’s worth noting that Githaiga had attained the retirement age, in fact, he had retired from a previous Government job of which he continues to receive the pension from.
Changing his ID Card and Passports details to fit in the job’s bracket is a serious criminal offence that in a law-abiding country, the charlatan should by now be rotting in jail and not sitting pretty in the comforts of the government’s offices. The fact that Githaiga is free even after being exposed in the media and the CID forwarded his files makes you wonder what the Criminal Investigations Department is doing in stopping fraud exercise as this of the TARDA MD. DCI Muhoro should by now be roasting fabricate Githaiga in the oven for forging official documents but for reasons known to him and the suspect, and he’s walking free, such an insult to the justice system.
His original ID dates 1953The faked passport No. A593455 showing date of birth as 1958
Githaiga by the simple fact that can be proven that he faked his biological credentials, should be sent to jail without questions. EACC yet another toothless body has been called to action and as usual, they received the files, and nothing has been forthcoming from them. According to moles talking to Kenya Insights, the anti-graft body was compromised by the corrupt MD to sleep on the case.
To the key issues, questions that Githaiga has failed to answer to date include;the procedure he used in the recruitment of staff, list of staff in 2013 including the full list of applicants, shortlisted and fruitful candidates, composition of the interviewing panel and its recommendations, details of all employees recruited during this period including dates and appointment. He can’t provide these necessary information since everything was done out of the law. Githaiga hired everything and everyone in his family and circles into TARDA without considering the law. Talk of ultimate duplicity.
From documents in Kenya Insights custody from a parliament mole, TARDA scandal and Githaiga was handling by Eunice Hinga and Ibrahim Lorot the EACC detectives whom we learn were compromised with bribes and promised me in order to step on the case. EACC issued Githaiga with a summon on 7th October, 2015 and to date that has never been honoured, has never been to the offices, he simply summoned the EACC detectives to his office bribed them and the case took a natural death way.
Ombudsman also took up the case on Githaiga being illegally in office. Let’s do some math here. The Auditor General, who unearthed the scandal say the acting MD earned Sh.10.8M in basic salary during the fraudulently extended tenure in office. Am analysis of-of the extra salary, which he ought to have made totals Sh.10,765,464, breakdowns from 2009.
In the audit review, Githaiga made a total basic pay of Sh.1.2M in the six months from January to June 2009 when he was the deputy MD. The MD’s basic pay according to the AG, was Sh.200,00/pm. Between July 2009 and June 2011, Githaiga took home Sh.3.6M for the two years he worked. Between March 2012 and Feb 2014, 24 months in total, Githaiga earned a total of Sh.3.6M. In this period(July 2014 to March 2015) according to Ouko’s report, Githaiga received Sh.10,756,464 basic salary besides other allowances. All these were illegally earned. Add everything to August 2016, and Githaiga has received over Sh.30M in basic pay leaving out allowances which make the strong potion.
AG Ouko also accused Githaiga of irregularly recruiting 37 employees in his capacity as acting MD before taking over an office in 2013, April. The illegal appointments for the financial year ended June 30, 2014, total basic pay amounted to Sh. 13,787,412. A closer scrutiny into the fake recruitments by the tribal Githaiga revealed that 17 out of the 37 workers were from his Kikuyu community. Worse still, the positions weren’t advertised as a condition for competitive recruitment as required in state’s offices.
Githaiga is illegally in office. Was appointed as the acting MD on 22nd April 2013 and while in his position, he ensured that he was irregularly confirmed as the MD in April 2015 without being subjected to competitive recruitment for holders of such officers.
Scanned documents from the Auditor General’s report showing the looting levels administered by Githaiga
He presented to the Board of Directors a recruitment process done in 2009which were dispensed by the then Regional Dev Minister, Fred Gumo and therefore not applicable. Due diligence and vetting were not done as the MD was interdicted for misappropriation of Sh.190M for ESP programme in TANA DELTA which he has never accounted for to date.
In respect to Sh.30,714,048 grant received from the Europian Union for implementation of community-based mini-hydropower development in Upper Tana basin for poverty alleviation project. However, the funds have remained unutilised for over four years. Available information to Kenya Insights indicates that the EU has since recalled the funds in the exercise 2013’2014 and advised TARDA to come up with a new proposal for another grant. This is a glaring case of incompetence.
Githaiga has not explained why the funds were not put into intended use resulting to the withdrawal of the same by the donor. In the circumstances, the authority seems to be focused on achievements of its strategic goals.
Githaiga changed his name from what is in the national ID as confirmed by the National Registration Bureau to a different one which is in his passport No. A1593455 acquired on 2nd February 2011. Further, he has changed his date birth from 1953 to 1958 a date he now uses on most of his official documents.
Accordingly, he ought to have retired in 2008, a year before the government enhanced the retirement age to 60 years. This amounts to criminal action on the part of Githaiga of cheating on his age by five years. The DCI should not tolerate such a tactless and fraudulent MD and its an insult to intelligence when such a fraud holds such a high public office for whatsoever reasons.
We call upon the CID, DPP, EACC to man up and pick up the case in streamlining public institutions. If either of the bodies wants to feign ignorance, Kenya Insights is readily available through ([email protected]) to present the files to them for solutions.
Given his financial might, Githaiga the scamming TARDA MD has been able to silence all the key institutions from highlighting the story. EACC is loudly silent waiting for their share of millions. We’re told he paid them handsomely with promises of more. TARDA is destined to receive close to Sh.3B as of 2017/17 FY allocations and this is one of the reasons we learn he extended his period. The money he’s baiting to loot and pay off the rest of his other crooks as promised.
It is disturbing that while Kenya is struggling with high youth unemployment rate, some old charlatans are using crooked and criminal methods to stay afloat. Githaiga is receiving pension and at the same time, he’s receiving salary from the same Government under different names and dates of birth. One wonders why nothing can’t happen to him yet the evidence is out in black and white and in the right hands. EACC,CID,DPP and SCAC the goverment’s agencies that have been sleeping on the job and need to wake up before this man completely finishes TARDA.
It’s even more depressing that the fraudulent TARDA MD was appointed by respected environmentalist Prof Judi Wakhungu. She was aware of all these transgressions and still went ahead to appoint him adding stains to her presumed white profile. Her integrity, reputation and international respect that she commands is now in line for having appointed such a swindle into such a big position. With everything now open to the public we call upon the CS to revoke the appointment of Githaiga and ensure he pays back all the money he received from TARDA illegally and most importantly, work to see that the corrupt MD is thrown behind bars for his criminal acts of forging official documents and corruption. Kenya Insights is keen to follow up the matter to the end and will be paying attention to see how Wakhungu and relevant authorities will handle this. There’s no option of relaxing until this matter is solved and that’s by the fraud MD being ousted and legal actions taken against him.
Despondent traders in Eastleigh are left in the cold pondering where their area MP for Kamukunji Yussuf Hassan is hiding as private developers launch massive grabbing of public land in the busy and resourceful business zone. The cries from the group of hawkers talking to Kenya Insights are coming at a time when the Ombudsman report on a conflicted piece of land in Eastleigh found the occupant developer guilty of irregularly procuring the land.
Alfa Traders with Ali Sheikh Mohamud and Mohammed Barrow listed as the directors according to CAJ investigations, fraudulently acquired the land to construct a mall liaising with defunct City Council of Nairobi in 2007. Despite National, Lands Commission revoking the lease held by the dubious group and ironically the County government reinstating that the land is a public amenity, in 2014 when Kidero Government took charge, things took a sharp turn.
From what Kenya Insights establishes was after substantial negotiations and million shilling bribery by the Alfa Traders owned by City Billionaire connected in numerous scandalous deals, Sheikh Khalifa, Director of legal affairs Karisa Iha in Feb 2014, gave the Alfa Traders legal ownership of the land despite the open discrepancies.
Ombudsman in its recommendations to solve the standoff, recommended for the Nairobi County Government to repossess the land from the dubious traders and serve them with a cessation notice and immediately stop construction and vacate the parcel of land LR. No. 36/VII/1037. It also recommended the 403 affected traders be prioritised in the new allocation since the land is listed legally as a public amenity.
Traders were also RECOMMENDED TO BE AWARDED Ksh.150,000 each as compensation for the costs incurred in constructions of stalls destroyed by Alfa Traders. Corrupt official seated at City Hall, Nelson Otido who executed the lease of documents in favour of Alfa Traders, Isaac Nyoike, Chief Valuer and Karisa Iha the Director, Legal Affairs be fired by Kidero the Nairobi Governor over abuse of power and breach of public trust. However, these recommendations are yet to be effected with City being the chief accused and yet charged to execute directives opt to give silent treatment on the new developments.
As the area MP, Yusuf Hassan shouldn’t be taking a backbench position on a matter that needs intense mobilisation and lobbying despite his quiet tone nature. This is the time Yussuf should stand with his constituents and be seen to be with the mwananchi down there, after all, it is his constituency, and he has the obligation to protect public interests and amenities.
The land squabbles have been ongoing for years and from what Kenya Insights gathers, the MP has been conspicuously missing from the picture with the traders who are drawn from across the section of communities in Kenya left to fight for themselves. Senator Sonko at one point joined them and staged a protest where the construction by the fraud Alfa Traders stopped for few days, but he has never been seen there again. The traders say the monied Sheikh Khalifa bribed Sonko to buy his silence. Kenya Insights has relentlessly reached out for the senator in weeks, and his lips have remained super glued going to affirm the allegations of the traders that his silence was bought.
Governor Evans Kidero and Senator Mike Sonko. Both have steered away from the Eastleigh Land Grab, alleged to be having business links with Alfa Traders the dubious company that has grabbed the public land.
The Governor, Kidero on the other side, also joined the traders and called for the Contractors to stop, but these were mere blab]nket orders as it’s been established he has business links with Sheikh Khalifa who is the owner of Alfa Traders. City Hall has been giving cessation orders to the rogue contractors but just for the cameras and letting them continue with the illegal construction.
It doesn’t make any sense when Kidero allude that he’s fighting the cartel when he can’t implement simple recommendations by the Ombudsman to repossess the land and fire rogue officers in his office. By keeping everything constant, Kidero is not only affirming his position in protecting impunity forces but also propagating the corruption culture within City Hall that has now escalated to disturbing heights.
Yussuf Hassan if not disturbed then must be ashamed for leaving his constituents to be disturbed in the hands of the looting cartel. What will be left for the public when the entire Eastleigh is being swallowed by the private developers. Will the same MP seek votes from the same traders he has abandoned? Why is the MP maintaining a resounding silent on this matter can it be read that he is compromised and only working to protect the corrupt network? These are some of the few of many questions the traders are putting through. Will the MP wake from the slumber and make a sound on this even a cough? Kenya Insights will be watching.
Alfa Traders continues with illegal construction at the public land despite Ombudsman directive that they don’t have rights to the land and County Government should repossess it
Despite the fact that the directives and Ombudsman investigations that Alfa Traders are illegally holding the land and Kidero should repossess the land, impunity is in full effect. Construction at the site continue undeterred daily, and that’s the ugly but real face of City Hall giving zero regards to law and order. The bribing Alfa Traders probably have oiled the officials and going on with their illegal business in peace. Kidero, Sonko and Yussuf the MP as the entrusted custodians are watching from the fence. The sad truth of Nairobi County where corruption and impunity are growing to be the order of the day. Yusuf is ranked as one of the best-performing MPs in the City.
