Sh9bn: Uhuru told he has Kibaki’s support
Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta (right) with President Kibaki’s son, Jimmy, during a funds drive at the Othaya Catholic Church on Sunday. Mr Kenyatta blamed unnamed officials at the Treasury for the Sh9.2 billion “printing error” that has put him under the spotlight. A parliamentary committee will on Tuesday table its findings on the scandal, which Mr Kenyatta has blamed on political detractors. Photo/JOSEPH KANYI
What you need to know:
- Finance minister’s allies blame media and political enemies for budget fiasco
Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta was on Sunday assured that he had President Kibaki’s support as he launched a public fight-back over the “typing error” that resulted in a Sh9.2 billion discrepancy in Budget figures.
Mr Kenyatta, also a Deputy Prime Minister, was told by the President’s son, Jimmy: “We are aware that there are many enemies who are fighting you, but if the President believes in you then the rest of Kenyans also support you.”
The public defence of the Finance minister came at a fund raising in President Kibaki’s Othaya constituency, where speakers accused unnamed Treasury officials of colluding with Mr Kenyatta’s political rivals.
Mr Kenyatta has been under increasing pressure since blaming a typing or computer error for the massive discrepancy in the budgetary figures after initially denying in a Ministerial Statement in the House that there was anything wrong with the numbers, and launching scathing criticism against Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara, who had raised the issue.
On Sunday, Mr Kenyatta left the fund-raising meeting early, explaining that he had to rush back to his office to attend to the matter.
“There are things in my ministry that appear to have gone wrong,” he said before handing over the baton of chief guest to newly-appointed Nairobi Metropolitan Development minister Njeru Githae.
An aide of Mr Kenyatta, who sought anonymity, told the Nation that the Finance minister was going to make a major reshuffle at the Treasury.
Mr Kenyatta had blamed political enemies whom he claimed lacked a development agenda.
“I urge those making noise, including the media, to go back and start working instead of focusing on the negative,” he said.
However, he did not offer explanations on how he came to read figures which had been altered.
“You have all read the newspapers and what they have been reporting. But that will not detract me from working to achieve my goals,” he said.
In Othaya, his allies claimed that the Finance minister was being sabotaged by Treasury officials who were out to ensure that he fails in a docket that has recorded a high turn-over in the last five years due to scandals.
Mr Kenyatta is one of the key politicians in the PNU coalition seeking to succeed President Kibaki. Others are Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka and Internal Security minister George Saitoti.
Gichugu MP Martha Karua is also in the race, but she recently quit as minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, citing frustrations by forces hostile to reforms.
In addition to Mr Jimmy Kibaki, other speakers who defended Mr Kenyatta at the meeting included assistant minister Kareke Mbiuki and Kamukunji MP Simon Mbugua.
Mr Mbiuki, an assistant minister for Agriculture, claimed that Mr Kenyatta was a victim of sabotage.
“We are aware there are people in the Treasury out to frustrate the Finance minister by giving him the wrong figures and we will not allow that to happen,” he said.
Mr Kenyatta has already invited the Criminal Investigations Department (CID and National Security Intelligence Services (NSIS) to investigate the matter.
The latest reports indicated that senior Treasury officials have confessed to being aware of the Sh9.2 error even before the Supplementary Budget was taken to the printer.
Questions have arisen over how a column that is fixed — from last year’s Budget — was altered in the Supplementary Estimates.
Senior Treasury officials who could not be quoted because they are not authorised to reveal the information suspected that the alteration was an outcome of the succession battles enveloping the government and its departments, raising questions over the extent to which politics is affecting the functioning of the coalition government.
When the matter was brought up in Parliament last week, Mr Marende passed it on to two House committees, Finance and Budget, to investigate and report to the House on Tuesday.
But that was before Mr Kenyatta had done an about-turn outside the House and confessed there were errors in the figures.
MPs Chris Okemo, who chairs the House Finance Committee, and his Budget Committee counterpart Martin Ogindo have already received a representation from Mars Group, an anti-corruption lobby group that first detected the Sh9.2 billion discrepancy.
