Kimunya: Always in eye of the storm

This minister has become totally allergic to any advice from government institutions,” thundered Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo.

“We have shown you seven different letters saying that there is nothing wrong with the procurement, and it is only you, who is not a lawyer, who is giving advice which nobody seems to understand.”

Mr Kilonzo’s tirade was, unsurprisingly, directed at Mr Amos Kimunya, one Cabinet minister who has dominated the headlines for all the wrong reasons during President Kibaki’s 10-year stay in power.

This time round, the 50-year-old legislator was in the eye of the storm over the controversial cancellation of a Sh56 billion contract for the construction of another airport next to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).

The Transport minister was at pains to explain why he cancelled a contract that had been given a clean bill of health by all the relevant agencies – including the Attorney-General acting as the government’s chief legal adviser, the Cabinet, and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.

MPs read vested interests – and even corruption – in the minister’s actions, claiming he has links with a Chinese firm that had shown interest in the tender.

Not one to take such allegations lying down, Mr Kimunya fought back from the almost empty front bench: “I have no interest in a company owned by the Chinese Government.

Putting up a lone fight

“I don’t know them; I have not met them. Unless the member (Belgut MP Charles Keter) has been sent by them to me, then he can give me further details on who they are and what they want.”

It was not the first time the Kipipiri MP was putting up a lone fight against fellow parliamentarians baying for his blood.

Only two weeks ago, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) declared Mr Kimunya and Central Bank governor Njuguna Ndung’u unfit to hold public office for – coincidentally – cancelling a 10-year currency printing contract that CBK had with De La Rue and instead canvassing for short-term arrangements when the former was Finance minister.

The committee accused Prof Ndung’u of failing to resist Mr Kimunya’s pressure and allowing the contract, which was cheaper, to be replaced with an arrangement through which the country lost Sh1.8 billion.

“Evidence received by way of own admission indicates that Hon Amos Kimunya, then minister for Finance, was the architect of the joint venture deal between the Government of Kenya and De La Rue,” the MPs concluded in their report.

The question remains: Are Mr Kimunya’s tribulations at the hands of fellow MPs self-inflicted or a product of a witch-hunt?

Bumula MP Bifwoli Wakoli offers some useful insights: “I am not his advocate but I cannot rule out personal scores in this one. I was in Parliament and he tabled all the relevant documents. If MPs knew the role of a minister, they would know that he cannot be involved in procurement.”

Yet there are those who maintain that Mr Kimunya is his own worst enemy.

“Mr Kimunya is always in a circle of controversy,” says Igembe South MP Mithika Lintuli.

Perhaps true. At the height of the 2007 presidential campaigns, Mr Kimunya stirred trouble when he retorted that “the Nairobi Stock Exchange is not a fish market”.

The remark was targeted at the ODM presidential candidate, Mr Raila Odinga, whose understanding of the bourse Mr Kimunya seemed to doubt.

The retort would haunt Mr Kimunya a year later when his role in the sale of the Grand Regency hotel became the subject of a motion of no confidence against him.

Contributing, Mr Kilonzo reminded Mr Kimunya: “The minister might be a guru in the accounting profession but this House has valuers and you cannot be a valuer overnight.

“We saw arrogance from the minister when he was asked about Safaricom. His answer was: ‘This is not a fish market. When he was asked about De La Rue, he said we were speaking out of ignorance. When he was asked about the Grand Regency Hotel, he said: ‘This is a deal too sweet to sign off.’

“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, where there is smoke, there is fire. There is smoke in De La Rue; there is fire. There is smoke in the IPO; there is fire. In the Grand Regency, there is even a bigger fire!”

Mr Kilonzo summed up MPs’ opinion of Mr Kimunya thus: “Ask yourself: How come your own colleagues in Cabinet are not with you? Perhaps it is because of courtesy.

You have no respect for anybody! Parliament has taken exception to your conduct. Your own colleagues in Cabinet are not with you.”

With that Mr Kimunya’s fate was sealed. A near-unanimous House passed the motion, forcing him to resign from Cabinet in July 2008, but he was reinstated in January after a taskforce investigating the sale of the hotel cleared him of any wrongdoing.