Alfred Keter in trouble over weighbridge drama

Outspoken Nandi Hills MP Alfred Keter has landed trouble again — this time, for invoking President Uhuru Kenyatta’s name even when on the wrong side of the law.

Mr Keter was filmed threatening and insulting police officers and workers at the Gilgil weighbridge on the Nairobi-Nakuru road.

The expletive-laden rant was recorded by one of the officers using a cellphone.

Blogger Robert Alai posted the video on YouTube yesterday morning, provoking furious reactions from Kenyans on social media.

The Director of Public Prosecution, State House, the Transport and Infrastructure ministry and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission also weighed in, all condemning the incident.

Mr Keter was accompanied by his URP colleague, nominated MP Sunjeev ‘Sonia’ Kaur Birdi, whose truck, which was fitted with a drilling rig, had been detained because it lacked an exemption permit as required by law.

INVESTIGATE INCIDENT

The Director of Public Prosecution, Mr Keriako Tobiko, put out a statement within hours directing the police and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the Gilgil incident. Acting Inspector General of Police Samuel Arachi then asked Mr Keter to report to the police for investigations.

Mr Keter appeared to have been angered by the officers’ refusal to release the truck and failure to answer calls supposedly made by State House Comptroller Lawrence Lenayapa, the National Assembly’s Administration and National Security Committee chairman, Mr Asman Kamama and Rift Valley Regional Commissioner Osman Warfa.

He said: “You know my worry is…let me tell you. We are the government. The State House controller anawapigia simu (is calling you), and no one picks?”

He later warns in the clip: “When the President calls, my friend, you have to respect. Whether you are a mother f****r or whatever. State House inapiga simu na unasema huja release gari?”

Though he alleges that Mr Warfa called the officers, he appeared to have forgotten his name and asks the officers to remind him. At one point, he refers to him as “Arfa”.

“What is the name of the PC?” he asks.

“We were about 10 Members of Parliament. You are waiting to hear from who? From God? Jesus Christ to call you? What the f**k is that?”

ISSUE NOT THE PERMIT

When the two were told that the truck belonging to Ms Birdi did not have the necessary permit, Ms Birdi said that the issue was not the permit but the failure of the officers to answer telephone calls.

When one of the officers defended his colleagues saying that the matter had been handled by the day shift officers, Ms Birdi quipped: “Kwani hakuna handover? (Is there no handover?)”

When the officers reminded him that they were just enforcing the law, Mr Keter replied: “We will reverse the law and we have to start with you!”

He told the officers that though it was the work of legislators to make law, they were free to break them. “We are the ones making laws; when we want we break them.”

He warned them that he would deal with them. “I fight big wars. I don’t fight small wars. Tell your boss he is stupid. Hata kesho hakuna kazi! (You will be kicked out tomorrow!) We have to sack the people,” he warned.

The MP then said he would see the President himself over the incident. However, State House immediately distanced itself from the matter, saying Mr Keter’s claims about the officers based there “are untrue and amount to nothing more than name-dropping.”

“The Presidency commends the public officers who resisted the apparent intimidation,” State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu said in a statement.

The Transport and Infrastructure Ministry said that was not the first time in recent times that public officers have tried to intimidate its officers.

DENIED CALLING

In a statement, the ministry said a senator recently stormed the Mtwapa station with his entourage and brandished guns as he demanded the release of a water tanker that had been impounded for overloading.

On Mr Keter, Infrastructure Principal Secretary John Mosonik said: “We have launched investigations to get to the bottom of the matter, but let the public be assured that we shall not allow anyone to derail our efforts to streamline operations in the sector.”

Contacted, Mr Lenayapa denied calling the Gilgil Weighbridge as alleged by Mr Keter. “I did not call anybody there. You can call the Weighbridge and they will tell you the truth,” he told the Nation on phone.

Asked if Mr Keter requested him to intervene, he said: “No. No. I have no idea completely”.

Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission spokesman Yassin Amaro said: “As an institution mandated to enforce the values  under Chapter Six of the Constitution, we are already on the Gilgil Weighbridge matter. It is our mandate and we will execute it.”

Later, the MP told journalists outside the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters on Kiambu Road that they went to the weighbridge after being told that the officers there “were behaving in a manner that suggested they wanted a bribe.”

Grounded

ASKING FOR BRIBE

“We tried to address the issue they were raising but we found out it wasn’t about the licensing and that other vehicles had also been grounded,” said Mr Keter.

He alleged that the officers there had been asking for bribes of between Sh10,000 and Sh50,000.

“We cannot handle corruption issues while smiling. We were emotional because we saw Kenyans that had been waiting at a weighbridge that has been turned into a corruption centre. There is a lot of money circulating there through corruption.”

He asked the EACC and the CID to help deal with the corruption at the weighbridge.

Said Ms Birdi: “We told them that everything is in order and they should stop bothering us. The fact is we got upset because these people are actually demanding bribes,” she said.

Reported by Zadock Angira, John Ngirachu and Jacqueline Kubania