TROUBLE

The war against corruption exposed deep divisions between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Saturday as the two engaged in a round of actions aimed at claiming the high moral ground in the fight against graft.

On a day of high drama which resulted in the sacking of eight top officials — including four Permanent Secretaries — the cracks in the coalition government became apparent with the PM and the President’s office unable to act together on the removal of government officials implicated in corruption.

Those who lost their jobs in the purge are PSs Dr Romano Kiome (Agriculture), Mr Ali Mohamed (Special Programmes), Prof Karega Mutahi (Education) and Dr Mohammed Isahakia (Prime Minister’s office).

The PM’s chief of staff, Mr Caroli Omondi, also left office as did the managing director of the National Cereals and Produce Board, Prof Gideon Misoi, Mr James Boit, NCPB Sales and Marketing Manager, and Mr Robert Langat, the corporation’s general manager.

However, the Sunday Nation established that Mr Langat left the parastatal last year at the height of the maize scandal.

Mr Odinga’s office made the first move. The PM summoned two of his chief officers implicated in the maize scandal, Dr Isahakia and Mr Omondi, on Friday afternoon and asked them to step aside.

The Sunday Nation understood Mr Odinga was advised he could not fire them because the Head of Public Service, Mr Francis Muthaura, had made it plain that the PM did not have powers to sack any permanent secretaries since he was not the appointing authority.

Dr Isahakia and Mr Omondi agreed to step aside and handed their resignations to the media separately on Saturday morning, shifting the pressure to State House.

Later, in a press statement sent to newsrooms at 5.14 p.m. President Kibaki announced that he had asked all the civil servants named in an audit report into the subsidised maize and Free Primary School scandals to vacate office for three months to pave the way for investigations.

President Kibaki appeared to claim credit for the suspensions by naming Mr Omondi and Dr Isahakia in the list of those he had asked to step aside, despite the fact that they had quit earlier.

“President Kibaki reaffirmed the government’s commitment to fighting corruption,” the statement from State House said, “and assured of speedy and conclusive investigations on use of public resources”.

Multiple interviews with senior officials within government indicated the dramatic chain of events on Saturday provided evidence of the strains in the grand coalition government and the troubled relations between President Kibaki and Mr Odinga.

“This is a marriage on the rocks,” said one official, who cannot be identified. “There are obvious tensions between the principals. Mr Odinga has formed the opinion that Mr Kibaki will do anything to stop him from being his successor. Mr Kibaki, on the other hand, is not happy with Mr Odinga’s position on various issues. That means the two are working at cross-purposes.”

Allies of the President and PM weighed in to accuse each other of playing politics with corruption. Assistant minister Kabando wa Kabando of PNU called for more heads to roll.

“Ministers who have violated the Public Officer Ethics Act and the State Corporations Act and all ministers with fraud cases in court should quit,” he said.

Foreign Affairs assistant minister Richard Onyonka, who attended Mr Odinga’s rally at Afraha Stadium in Nakuru, said the President’s move had caught the ODM team unawares.

“We did not know, we are just receiving calls from all over that this has happened,” he said.

During the rally, Mr Odinga’s allies heaped pressure on Mr Kibaki’s allies, Education minister Sam Ongeri and Agriculture minister William Ruto, who has lately been close to Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta, to quit.

Ministers James Orengo and Fred Gumo said all ministers mentioned in corruption scandals and those with fraud cases should step down. But Mr Ruto fought back and said the real culprits in the maize scandal had been revealed and he was not one of them.

Last evening, aides of President Kibaki denied he had reacted to pressure from the resignation of the PM’s officials.

An aide who spent the better part of yesterday with the President at State House said that Mr Kibaki had hoped that those implicated in the twin scandals would step aside of their own volition.

Another adviser said the President had been counselled by his close confidantes that he needed to crack the whip on those implicated in various scandals. The aide said the President had on two occasions hinted that he would fire those implicated in the FPE and maize scandals.

Saturday’s resignations and suspensions capped a week in which the war against corruption had taken centre stage with accusations and counter-accusations flying between the two wings of government.

The bone of contention was the question of what action would be taken on officials whose departments had been implicated in corruption.

Of the officials who left on Saturday, Prof Mutahi had been in the news for several weeks following revelations of the loss of Sh103 million meant for capacity building in the free primary education programme.

The other officials are said to have played various roles in the subsidised maize scandal. Dr Isahakia was named in a PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit report as a co-director in a company that was irregularly allocated maize from the subsidised maize scheme.

Mr Omondi is said to have irregularly signed a procurement agreement with a South African firm valued at Sh3.5 billion while Dr Kiome was accused of authoring a note in favour of a miller from Meru to be considered for allocation of maize. Mr Mohammed was also said to have abused office in managing the strategic grain reserve.

At the PM’s office, sources said Mr Odinga had individually met Dr Isahakia and Mr Omondi and asked them to quit.

“Immediately after going through the report, he sat down with the two and told them that the office will have to set the pace in the war on corruption,” said the PM’s aide who was privy to the talks.

The PM is then said to have informed key ODM leaders of his decision to have the two officials step aside. But even as he announced that he was stepping aside, Mr Omondi maintained his innocence, saying his actions had the approval of the Cabinet.