By JOHN NGIRACHU jngirachu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Tuesday, August 23 2011 at 12:10
Posted Tuesday, August 23 2011 at 12:10
Assistant Tourism minister Cecily Mbarire has denied that she offered a Sh100,000 bribe to Kenya Anti Corruption Commission boss PLO Lumumba and threatened to sue.
Instead, she said the money was a harambee donation to the PLO Lumumba Foundation.
Ms Mbarire said Tuesday that she intends to sue Prof Lumumba for defamation.
The Runyenjes MP alleged that the anti-graft chief took the money in cash in lieu of a cheque, which he refused because it was drawn by a company under KACC investigation.
On Monday, Prof Lumumba sensationally revealed that Ms Mbarire had attempted to bribe him with Sh100,000.
He claimed Ms Mbarire and her husband Dennis Apaa had escaped a sting operation earlier that would have had them caught on camera handing over the money in cash at her office.
Ms Mbarire alleged that the money was intended for the PLO and Lucy Onono Foundation, which he runs, and the KACC director had actually invited them for a fund-raiser at his home in Bondo.
While her husband had given a cheque for Sh100,000, said Ms Mbarire, Prof Lumumba rejected it as it was from a company that was under active investigation by KACC.
Mr Apaa then went back to Integrity Centre on August 10, said Ms Mbarire, and handed over Sh100,000 in lieu of the returned cheque.
She said it was an insult to her intelligence and suggestive of naiveté to suggest that she would seek to bribe Prof Lumumba, who earns Sh1.7 million, with Sh100,000.
“It was God who tipped me and I thank him for that because he (PLO) was probably planning to put handcuffs on me in front of cameras so that I look like a corrupt leader,” said Ms Mbarire.
From the documents she distributed to the press, the couple has been in contact with Prof Lumumba at least eight times since their first meeting at Sacred Heart Girls School Kyeni in Runyenjes at a public function.
"It is at this function that PLO requested me to organise a meeting with my husband. I asked him if he was really was sure he wanted to meet my husband because I knew KACC was investigating a company associated with my husband. He confirmed that he indeed wanted to meet us,” said Ms Mbarire.
That was in June, and they have in the past three months been to Prof Lumumba’s home in Runda, Mr Apaa has been to the director’s home in Bondo and been to his office once.
“We at no time planned to bribe, induce or influence him in any manner on any matter. As a family, we are still in shock that he would do this to us,” said Ms Mbarire.
The minister said she would lodge a defamation suit against the director Wednesday and has sworn an affidavit to that effect.
The Tourism assistant minister said her husband had learnt that investigations on his company, Broad Vision Utilities, had been completed and the file handed over to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
“This was the reason I texted PLO to seek for an appointment so that we could know the substance and charges, if any, that my husband would face,” said Ms Mbarire.
She said that this was "neither sinister nor illegal as every person is entitled to be informed about charges likely to be preferred against them".
Ms Mbarire said they also suspected that her husband’s company had been cleared in the KACC’s investigation and thus their willingness to associate with Prof Lumumba.
Broad Vision is owned jointly by Mr Apaa and Billy Indeche, a son-in-law of Water minister Charity Ngilu, and is among companies that have been under investigations since the ministry’s scandal was revealed in October last year.
The Land and Natural Resources Committee of Parliament has already cleared the Water minister of allegations that she influenced the award of contracts to companies owned by her relatives.
The detailed association Mr Apaa and Ms Mbarire have had with Prof Lumumba would raise questions as to why an investigating entity would be associating with possible suspects.
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