Three CSs face the sack, arrest in Sh21 billion dams probe

After four weeks of investigations, the Sh21 billion Arror and Kimwarer dams scandal is set to sink three Cabinet secretaries, who will be asked to step aside, even as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) widens the probe and prepares a final dossier, sources told the Nation Thursday.

Senior detectives confided to the Nation Thursday evening that they had “unmasked the real people behind the scandal”, and that the scam is “much deeper that we thought”.

ECONOMIC CRIMES

The scandal revolves around the construction of two Sh61 billion dams in Elgeyo-Marakwet County.

Work on the dams has never begun despite the payment of Sh21 billion to a broke Italian firm, CMC di Ravenna, and an insurance company which had secured the loans.

So complex have the investigations been that detectives in Nairobi sought the assistance of UK’s National Crime Agency, whose mandate is to investigate organised and economic crimes across regional and international borders.

Help has also been sought from the Italian government to trace the directors of the troubled company that had been awarded a tender to build the two dams. CMC di Ravenna has also abandoned work on the Itare dam in Nakuru County.

“We just realised we were scratching the surface, but we have now made a breakthrough,” the source at the DCI, who is familiar with the investigations, said.

Before the scope of investigations was widened this week, detectives had hoped to charge the three Cabinet Secretaries, alongside various Kerio Valley Development Authority officials and several government mandarins, with economic crimes.

“Part of the charges will involve failing to carry out due diligence and theft,” said a source.

RESHUFFLE

With the widening of the investigations, there is speculation within intelligence circles that President Uhuru Kenyatta will use his State of the Nation address on Thursday next week to ask all Cabinet Secretaries and Principal Secretaries embroiled in various scandals to step aside until they are cleared.

President Kenyatta used a similar occasion on March 2015 to direct five Cabinet Secretaries to step aside after their ministries were caught in corruption scandals. The five were Ms Charity Ngilu (Lands, Housing and Urban Development), Mr Felix Koskei (Agriculture), Mr Michael Kamau (Infrastructure and Transport), Mr Davis Chirchir (Energy and Petroleum) and Mr Kazungu Kambi (Labour, Social Security and Services).

There are also reports of a major Cabinet reshuffle before the President breaks for the Easter Holiday. The reshuffle will affect various Cabinet and Principal secretaries.

The talk of impending arrests and a reshuffle has heightened anxiety within the Jubilee administration and threatens to split the party down the middle.

State House insiders say that by asking the ministers to voluntarily step aside, President Kenyatta will be giving them a soft landing — before the law catches up with some of them.

WAR OF WORDS

Among those who have already been questioned over the dams scandal are National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, Agriculture’s Mwangi Kiunjuri, and Devolution’s Eugene Wamalwa.

Water CS Simon Chelugui has not been questioned, but investigators believe he is a person of interest in regard to Itare Dam. It is not clear which of these CSs the DCI is treating as suspects.

Investigations into the scandal have divided politics within Jubilee, with Deputy President William Ruto saying in public that the war against corruption is targeting him.

Also, the President’s supporters have engaged in a war of words with those of the DP as Mr Kenyatta shows rising frustration over the slow progress of projects with less than four years to the end of his term.

But, in a move that cooled the political temperatures, President Kenyatta visited Mr Ruto at his Harambee Annex office in Nairobi on Tuesday, an indicator that the Head of State did not want the impending reshuffle to create political animosity.

Me Kenyatta has been categorical that the war on corruption will continue, and that no one, including his close friends, will be spared. Dr Ruto’s supporters have been asking Mr Kinoti to stop the investigations on the multi-billion-shilling scandal and concentrate his efforts on “petty thieves and cattle rustlers”.

ILL-GOTTEN

But in a rejoinder, Mr Kinoti told off the critics, saying: “I will not be blackmailed, and I will not keep off. Tell those who are abusing me in political rallies that Kinoti is unshakeable, and that I will not allow billionaires to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth in peace.”

A spending breakdown by the National Treasury shows an advance payment of Sh7.8 billion was paid out. Of this amount, Sh4.3 billion was released for the construction of Arror dam and Sh3.5 billion for Kimwarer. The balance of the money dished out was paid to an insurance firm, Sace, as security for the construction of the dams.

The money is alleged to have been wired to foreign banks, and Mr Kinoti has been on the trail of the beneficiaries.

Of late, Mr Kenyatta appears to be losing trust in his Cabinet secretaries and has been castigating them in public.

More so, he has thrown his weight behind the DCI and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Noordin Haji, illustrating in public rally statements and actions the divisions within Jubilee Party.

While speaking on March 5 at the sixth devolution conference in Kirinyaga County, Mr Kenyatta asked leaders to stop politicising the war against corruption and leave it to the relevant agencies.