How MPs use legitimate complaints to extort money from companies

The deal-cutting that goes on in Parliament prior to the questions, motions and committee investigations has been revealed, this time around with credible allegations of extortion and bribery against MPs.

In a single day, three MPs, including an assistant minister, accused their colleagues of having pocketed money in order to use the floor of the House to satisfy their greed.

The amounts mentioned were not small change and ranged from Sh50,000 to Sh6.6 million.

According to MPs and insiders in the key offices in Parliament, the anatomy of corruption regarding questions and committee inquests is not that complex; it is shamelessly blatant.

This is how it works: An MP gets a legitimate complaint in good faith from, say, a constituent, about a malfeasance in a firm, say, tax evasion, environmental pollution or mistreatment of workers.

He files a question in the House but then calls the company’s management with a proposal “to talk things out”.

If the management “talks” – read, pays a bribe – the MP does not show up in the House to ask the question in hopes that it is dropped from the schedule.

If that fails, the MP will ask the question, lobby a few of his colleagues with part of the loot, and push the matter to be deferred to a later date or have it referred to a committee of the House for investigation.

Sometimes ministers are roped in, and they keep postponing the answer “to seek more information” and with time, the matter is somehow forgotten.

Insiders in the House bureaucracy say that whenever lawmakers are caught with their hands in the till, they accuse Parliament staff of failing to list the questions in the Order Paper, and because, a civil servant is no match for an MP, the MP always has his way.

The story of corruption and money changing hands is not new in the Tenth Parliament, which is believed to have had a lucrative run, given the mega-scams executed in the corridors of power of the Coalition Government.

Dr Oburu Oginga, Finance assistant minister, accused an MP of going around extorting businessmen and private companies while threatening them with a House inquiry if they failed to pay up.

“This House should not be used by people who go out there or send their relatives to go and extort money from the private sector and then come here to raise questions… It is a shame,” said Dr Oginga.

But even before the dust settled on these grave allegations, another MP, Ms Millie Odhiambo (nominated), said some MPs had been taken to lunch by commercial banks and the Treasury, and the cost of the lunch was Sh50,000 for each MP.

“I did not eat lunch, but I am going back home with a better conscience and I have no apologies… I cannot eat lunch worth Sh50,000,” she said.

Of course, MPs who were up in arms four months ago, standing up to President Kibaki, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka over high interest rates, changed their minds.

The Treasury and bankers had doubled their golden handshake and bought them “lunch”.

Never mind that interest rates have not changed from December levels when inflation was biting, and the shilling was depreciating.

Before the MPs threw out the proposed amendment to the Finance Bill, Joint Government Whip Jakoyo Midiwo raised the red flag saying that commercial banks were “talking to MPs” to reject the controversial amendment to cap interest rates.

He said the MPs had been hosted at posh hotels in Nairobi in a bid to influence them to support the Treasury’s position to kill the amendments.

While the outspoken MP alluded to money changing hands, he dwelt on semantics saying that “I do not want to say that MPs are being bribed”.

“But I want to urge my colleagues to think with their minds and not with their stomachs,” Mr Midiwo told the Sunday Nation on April 12 from South Africa, where he was on parliamentary business.

However, some MPs questioned why Mr Midiwo was “conveniently absent” yet he was “the face” of the regulation of interest rates in the House.

Mr Midiwo said that the South African trip had been in the works for a long time, and therefore he had no choice but to go.

There is an outspoken youthful first-time MP from the Rift Valley, who, whispers in Parliament have it, managed to get a house and a new car as a result of questions he asked in the House.

Another first-time MP from Western province has reportedly used his connections to clear a key financier of a top Cabinet minister of allegations of money-laundering.

They used a minister to answer a question in the House absolving the financier of the senior Cabinet minister, who is in the race to State House in the next elections.

Still another MP from Ukambani, is known to extort in top posh hotels, then come to Parliament to ask questions. He’s also known as the most potent gun for hire because he executes his job according to the client’s instructions.

Human rights lawyer Maina Kiai on Saturday asked Kenyans to boycott taxes over MPs’ greed.

“Any law passed through bribery cannot hold. It is unconstitutional. This is the clarion call for ordinary Kenyans to stand up and stop paying taxes which are only being stolen to these MPs. This is too much. It’s open thievery. You cannot have pension and gratuity, you get one or other,” Mr Kiai said.

Last month, Mr Shakeel Shabbir (Kisumu Town West) told the Sunday Nation how MPs were bribed to delete hostile references to Central Bank governor Prof Njuguna Ndung’u, from a report of a parliamentary committee.

Their aim was to exonerate the governor of any culpability in the rapid depreciation of the shilling in the last quarter of 2011.

He said some MPs were paid Sh50,000.

Some of the scandals that have raised queries about the conduct of MPs, especially regarding bribery, are the Nairobi cemetery scandal, the maize scandal, the Charterhouse bank inquest, and the approval of the director of public prosecutions, among others.

Even that powerful body in charge of MPs’ welfare — the Parliamentary Service Commission — has been accused of corruption and of attempted extortion of an insurance brokerage firm before.