Shollei accused of passing the buck

Members of the Public Accounts Committee accused former Judiciary Chief Registrar Gladys Boss Shollei of sleeping on the job as she deflected questions over a series of suspect transactions at the Judiciary to the Chief Justice and the Judicial Service Commission.

MPs on the committee said Mrs Shollei could not refuse to take responsibility for the questionable transactions she presided over because she was legally the accounting officer and therefore responsible for the finances of the Judiciary.

MPs Ababu Namwamba (Budalangi, ODM), Sakwa Bunyasi (Nambale, UDF) and Ahmed Abass (Ijara, ODM) argued there was no way Mrs Shollei could avoid responsibility.

“If we were talking about another institution, our shock levels would be less. But if the gatekeeper of justice is raping justice, it is absolutely shocking,” said Mr Namwamba.

Junet Mohammed (Suna East, ODM) said it was evident that the Judiciary was “operating like a marketplace.” “The CRJ should have known that she would be held responsible for the expenses,” he added.

“You can’t shift responsibility to anybody else. No matter how much flowery language you use, you can’t escape responsibility,” said Mr Abass.

Mrs Shollei was the first witness at the PAC’s scrutiny of the report of the Office of the Auditor General in a special audit carried out between December 2013 and March 2014.

She replied to the majority of questions raised by the auditors by either stating that the Judicial Service Commission had endorsed the expenditure or that Chief Justice Willy Mutunga should be made to explain the questionable spending.

Among the suspect transactions was the leasing of Elgon Place, a building in Upper Hill, Nairobi, designated for the Court of Appeal on which Sh70 million was spent but which was never occupied.

She said the building was identified after a competitive process, leased, partitioned and the judges’ chambers identified and washrooms fixed but the judges refused to occupy it.

They had alleged that the building was too close to communication masts and therefore exposed to radiation, she said, and the Chief Justice demanded that they leave the Supreme Court Building in the city centre.

Mrs Shollei said the Court of Appeal judges were kicked out of the building in the city centre and worked out of their cars for sometime but Dr Mutunga then gave in to their pressure and allowed them back into the ancient building in the city centre.

The National Environment Management Authority and the Communications Commission of Kenya eventually said the building did not have radiation but it has remained unoccupied.

The Judiciary had paid Sh70 million as rent for a whole year, which is now considered wasted.

“We should only have lost three months by the time the CJ wrote the letter,” said Mrs Shollei.

Asked about the payment of Sh80,000 allowances to Judiciary staff who are not members of the JSC, Mrs Shollei said the payments were endorsed by the Finance Committee of the JSC then headed by former Law Society of Kenya representative Ahmednassir Abdullahi.

Other members of that committee were; Justice Smokin Wanjala, Rev Samuel Kobia, Florence Mwangangi and Emily Ominde.

She said the JSC would often end up “bullying” the finance department to pay allowances for small meetings involving two people and in one case, Sh80,000 for a member who attended a luncheon at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

When she wrote to the Chief Justice complaining about the JSC’s interference in the day to day running of the Judiciary, she said, Dr Mutunga wrote back stating that he is not a “headless head of the Judiciary.”

“I tried everything to stop the madness,” said Mrs Shollei as she said she also wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for the Treasury as well as Parliament to complain about the JSC’s violation of the Public Finance Management Act.

But John Mbadi (Suba, ODM) said Mrs Shollei shouldn’t feign ignorance on the affairs of the Judiciary when she was in charge there.

Mr Mbadi said Mrs Shollei had given different answers to the Budget and Appropriations Committee when it asked her about the suspect deals four days before she was shown the door at the Judiciary.