ODM leads the Corruption Tag-Team in Kenya

John Mbadi :A thief investigating himself?

 Contrary to public pronouncements, Raila Odinga’s party, ODM is in the thick of the plunder of Kenya.A Lengthy investigation by this publication has established that there is a tag-team of corruption in Kenya.
 The team comprises of wealthy businessmen, politicians, the media and some so-called activists.

This is how it works: an official frustrates a businessman’s scheme to plunder Kenya; the miffed businessman concocts some scandal targeting the official in question, he hands the scandal to a an ODM politician or a miffed one too; the politician hands it to a friendly reporter who splashes the story, other politicians and activists pick up the cue and the chorus of condemnation begins.

Since the businessmen tag along politicians in the schemes to plunder Kenya, the politician is also miffed because he also lost in the same deal.

Waiguru: Hounded out by the
 Corruption Tag- team

The team, currently starring Jimmi Wanjigi, Raila Odinga and ODM, is going through a lean season, frustrated by the Uhuruto administration and is fighting back in all fronts.

In fact, the tag-team seems deadset on regime change. The reason; another five years of Kenyatta administration will cripple them financially.  This is the last one battle for their survival.

This team has in the past spun “scandals’ that have destroyed careers and brought the Kenyatta administration into disrepute, investigation by this publication have established.  However, our investigation has established, all “scandals” were hot air.

Our review of several allegations of mega corruption in Kenya such as the (in) famous Euro Bond saga, the SGR saga in Kenya and Uganda found them to be mere malicious tiffs by corrupt businessmen, in Kenya, called “tenderprenuers.”

“Tenderprenuers” are characters who specialize in winning government mega tenders, then sale them to the real providers for a fee. They themselves never provide a thing. In some instances, they originate the projects and sale them to corrupt government officials.

A pattern emerged from our tracking of the scandals: One, they all originate with ODM officials; the same officials never take the reports to the investigative agencies; that ODM dominated parliamentary committees are the first off the blocks to investigate such scandals; that the investigative agencies always find no evidence to back the allegations; that some politicians in these committees are interested parties since they also have their fingers in the cookie jar.

It is common Knowledge that investigation by Parliamentary committees attract massive publicity but carry no weight in prosecution of the alleged scams. Their job is merely to cover-up the real intention of the scam-to demonize and get uncooperative officials removed from office.

The cases hardly ever find their way into investigative and prosecution agencies. And where they do, they are almost always thrown out. Consequently, none of the alleged cases are ever prosecuted due to lack of evidence. The alleged culprits are tried and prosecuted in the press, public meetings and street demonstrations funded by the tenderprenuers.

In all cases, the “whistle blowers” who are in most cases, the culprits, avoid investigative bodies like the plague. In one such case, CORD politicians in Kenya mobilized their members to demonstrate when it became clear that their leader, Raila Odinga, was to be arrested for failing to honor summons by an investigative agency over the Eurobond saga.

In some instances, politicians, worried that their cover could be blown, even try to direct the investigations -telling investigators what to investigate, who to investigate and where to stop.

The tales are spun to either get unwanted people out of the way or just to embarrass the government.  A case in point is the alleged NYS plunder which cost the then Minister for Devolution and planning, Anne Waiguru, her job. As it turned out, Waiguru may have stood in the way of a tenderprenuer who was eyeing a Kshs16 billion security tender at NYS among other targeted projects.

The Isaack Hassan led IEBC was destroyed in a similar manner,when it refused to axe OT Morpho for Smartmatic to supply voter identification Kits. The company is owned by Lord Mark –Mahlom Brown a friend of Raila Odinga.   Ezra Chiloba, the new CEO also rejected the Smartmatic bid and is also a target of the tag-team.

Embankments(Soil Refill) and bridges account 30% of costs

This is the same reason the same politicians are calling for the boycott of Safaricom. The firm won a Kshs 14 billion contract to install surveillance cameras in Nairobi and Mombasa. A local tenderprenuer considers security contracts in Kenya his forte. It is through such tenders that he, together with others, looted billions of shillings of tax payer money.

 By 2004, such crooks had looted a total of US$700 million (Kshs56 billion in the then exchange rates), says a diplomatic cable seen by this publication. One reputedly pocketed US$5 million (Kshs 400 million in the current exchange rate then).

In their hurry to scandalize a project, the whistle blowers overlook critical details, resulting in a half-baked stories of criminal activity. This was the case in Eurobond saga, in which an alleged Kshs100 billion was stolen. Electronic Funds transfer documents show that the money was transferred to the Central Bank of Kenya’s account at the Federal Reserve, in New York. And that the Central bank, which is the banker to the government, paid the equivalent in Shillings to the consolidated account.

The scandal was just hot hair whose purpose was to embarrass the government by miffed tenderprenuers. There is no evidence any money was ever stolen.

 Deception was common in the on the standard gauge Railway “scandal.” Both MPs and journalists ignored mundane design parameters such as design capacity and design standards. To them SGR is SGR. That is why they were quick to use Ethiopia as role model because it had completed the first electric Standard Gauge Railway in Africa from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, a distance of 755 Kilometres at a cost of $3.4 billion.

This compares adversely with the $3.2 billion that the 600 Kilometre Mombasa-Nairobi section cost. The press was awash with hogwash. Some suggesting that huge chunks of money were stolen, a figure of Kshs 100billion was bandied around. But evidence has emerged of tenderprenuers, who lost the bid to construct the Railway line as a PPP project, conceiving and funding the “scandal.”

The Mombasa Super bridge of the SGR

 A comparison of the detailed designs tells a different story. The Kenyan Railway is class one Chinese standard rail line whose gradient was 1.2 percent. That meant construction of a total of 79 bridges totaling 35 kilometres. Some of the bridges are kilometres long.

Engineers say that bridges contribute 30 per cent of total cost of building a Railway line. That means where bridges and embankments are fewer, the cost is lower. That is the case with the Ethiopian SGR which has only level -crossings and only one 150 meter- long bridge.

A report seen by this publication suggests that the Nairobi- Kisumu – Malaba section of the SGR will cost more per kilometer due to the terrain in the Rift valley. It will require bridges and tunnels to ensure that the locomotives hauling 800 meter- long double –stacked wagons or 4,000 tons maintain a steady 80 KPH throughout the journey.

One more detail, both the Tanzanian and Ethiopian lines, are upgrades of the old Railway line apart from being of an inferior quality compared to Northern corridor. The Northern Corridor SGR is a Greenfield project.