Mudavadi denies role in cemetery scandal

Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi has told a House Committee that he was not involved in the Sh283 million cemetery fraud.

The minister said “there was no record” of correspondence seeking his approval on the matter.

He said all the correspondence ended at the office of the suspended Local Government Permanent Secretary Sammy Kirui and never made it to his desk.

“Anybody looking at this matter will come to the conclusion that the minister wasn’t supposed to be in the know over the matter,” said Mr Mudavadi during the meeting at Parliament’s County Hall Thursday.

But as the minister pleaded ignorance, an officer from the Controller and Auditor General’s office in charge of City Hall, Ms Tabitha Waweru, said Mr Mudavadi ought not to have waited for the PS to brief him.

“The law requires that the council must have written to the minister to purchase such property. Whether the PS gave information or not, the minister should have gone further and sought information,” said Ms Waweru.

Seek authority

However, Mr Mudavadi, also Local Government minister, insisted that the officers involved in the scam did not bother to seek his authority even where it was required.

The auditors also noted that the mere fact that the purchase price for the cemetery land was “exact up to the last cent as the budgeted amount” ought to have raised queries.

Mr Mudavadi said that it was such issues that proved that the whole purchase of the fraud must have been hatched long before he took over the Local Government docket.

While he agreed that he was aware that a huge chunk of the cash had ended in people’s pockets, he maintained that he did not receive “even a cent” of the loot.

The minister said Mr Kirui must have deliberately locked him out of the cemetery purchase project.

“If a matter of such great importance is not communicated to me, then your guess is as good as mine, as to what other crucial information was kept away from me,” said Mr Mudavadi.

“The PS did not make any serious effort to keep me appraised on this matter.”

He added that a minister and a permanent secretary operate on trust and faith, and if the two don’t exist, then there’ll be communication breakdown.

Skip protocol

Pressed by committee chairman Thomas Mwadeghu (Wundanyi, ODM) and members Benjamin Langat (Ainamoi, ODM), Nemesyus Warugongo (Kieni, PNU), Wilson Litole (Sigor, ODM) and Musa Sirma (nominated, ODM), the minister said that “it would look strange” if he skipped protocol and started seeking information from junior officers.

The minister said the PS should have been “more serious” and followed up their informal discussions with official letters; but it seemed “Mr Kirui had a completely different motive".

Mr Mudavadi said that he was aware of the grey areas in the procurement when the matter ended in Parliament on June 4, 2009, through a query raised by Igembe South MP Mithika Linturi (Kanu).

“Prior to that, nothing was brought to my attention concerning this matter…none of the documents between the Ministry and the city council was copied to me,” said the minister.