Kibaki as a corrupt leader

Questions:

How much do Kibaki know of the ‘collapsed’ Kenya Meat commission?

What role did he play in aiding its collapse?

Why didn’t he unearth/exposed (as VP and Finance Minister to boot), the ‘beneficiaries’ of Ksh.13
million (equivalent of Ksh.250 million today) acrued from the sale of KR land which disinherited the
workers of Kenya railway in 1980?

What relationship is there between the ‘past event’ and the sale of ‘the two’ parastatals during his
reign?
The following is an excerpt of an investigative article”Mr. Moneybags” a headline story appearing in ‘The
Standard’ newspaper Saturday January 8th 2005.
….Kibaki has been ‘faulted’ for turning a blind eye when ‘his friends’ are caught with their
‘little hands’ in the ‘cookie jar’ (read state coffers)’.
A case in point was in 1980 when he was the Vice President and Minister of Finance. At that
time, his friend of many years, Mr. F.T.J. Nyamu was Managing Director, Kenya Reinsurance
Company+, a parastatal under the Ministry of Finance.
In April that year, the government directed the Kenya Railways++ to put up decent houses
for its workers living in the shanties of Muthurwa and Landi-Mawe railway quarters.
Subseqently, the Kenya railway set aside the land next to the Railway Training School, RTS
(Railway Training Institute, RTI, as is known today ) in Nairobi South-B for the project. But
hardly before the housing project could take off, a dummy company, Tass properties, was
hurriedly formed.
The Kenya railways, then under another of Kibaki’s buddies, Mr. Davidson Ngini, sold the
land set aside for the railway estate to a dummy company (Tass properties) at only Ksh.690,
000. Two weeks later, the dummy company sold the same land to Nyamu’s Kenya Reinsurance
at Ksh. 14 million.
Instead of the Kenya railways building low-cost houses for its workers as the government
had directed, the Kenya Re-insurance company constructed what is today Plainview and
Golden-gate estates and purported to sell houses to railway workers living in Muthurwa and
Landi-Mawe. Of course it was a crazy joke as none of them could afford to buy the newly
built houses. They ended up in the hands of anybody who could afford to pay.
The Ministry of Finance never bothered to find out who made a cool Ksh. 13 million
(equivalent of Ksh.250 million today) - buying railway land for Ksh. 690,000 and selling it to
another parastatal for Ksh. 14 million in just a fortnight. Mr. F.T.J.Nyamu and Kibaki own
Finance House, a prestigous addresss in the central business district. The family company
that manages Kibaki’s businesses, Lucia limited, is housed at finance house.
Another of Kibaki’s friends, businessman, Nat Kangethe of Saatchi & Saaatchi associates
was the Finance Director at the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC) when it collapsed. During
that time, KMC entered into a queer contract with a dummy company called Halal Ltd to
construct an abbatoir for the company at Ngong. According to the 1978 Auditor-General’s
report, no abbatoir was constructed even after the government poured Ksh.50 million
(equivalent of Ksh.1 billion today) into the project. The dummy company and its ‘sole director’,
one ‘Mohamed Yusuf’ have never been heard of ever since.
Though Kibaki is not in the same wealth league as his two predecessors (Jomo Kenyatta and
Daniel Moi), he too has had interesting motley of businesses associates: He is with Mr.
Nicholas Biwott in the Deacons chain of clothes shops now re-named Woolsworth. He is
with Mr. Charles Njonjo in Heri Ltd* and with Dr. Njoroge Mungai in a real estate firm that
owns, among others, Union Towers building on Moi avenue, Paramount Plaza and Marple
Courts in Milimani. Kibaki is also with Mr. Chris Kirubi in the International Life
house.**[Prime buildings in Nairobi belongs to a few-Little wonder a unitary system of government
serves them well].
*Heri limited was formed in the 70’s with sole aim of getting a ‘piece’ of lucrative goverment contracts but
who’s shareholding read like a roll of who was who in Kenya at that time. Heri’s breakthrough came when it
was awarded a contract to supply the Kenya Armed Forces with mercedes Lorries in 1973.
+ Kenya Re-insurance Company has since been sold to the ‘public’-2007. ++ Kenya Railways has been takenover
by ‘RVR’
** Comment.
(The full article covers 4 pages of the Saturday newspaper_The Standard, authored by leading investigative journalist Kamau
Ngotho).