Kipipiri MP jumps from one controversy into another

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By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Saturday, August 11  2012 at  23:30

Transport Minister Amos Kimunya is a man with a thick skin. Mr Kimunya, the MP for Kipipiri, has been forging ahead despite a long list of controversies surrounding his ten-year tenure in government.

The mention of his name rekindles the memories of his timeless statement: “I’d rather die, than resign”. That remark was made shortly after Parliament censured him, in July 2008, over the secret sale of the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi to a Libyan investment company. The hotel has since been renamed Laico Regency.

The questions regarding the controversial sale saw Mr Kimunya, then the minister of Finance, quit. A report of a presidential commission of inquiry, which has never been released to the public, is said to have indicted Mr Kimunya over the sale.

It was not lost on observers that Mr Kimunya got into the Finance docket in 2006 after Mr David Mwiraria quit to pave way for investigations into the Anglo Leasing scandal.

Mr Kimunya spent a few months in the cold, and in 2009, got back into the Cabinet as minister for Trade. As things cooled down, he was appointed to the ministry of Transport.

But the ghosts from the Treasury are still on his case. The Public Accounts Committee now wants him out of office because of the role he played in the cancellation of a money-printing contract. The PAC said Mr Kimunya and Central Bank Governor Njuguna Ndung’u are unfit to hold public office.

Mr Kimunya has since dismissed the report and said he had no apologies to make, because he saved the public at least Sh3 billion, by cancelling the contract. But then, the Auditor General had informed the House Committee that Sh1.8 billion of public funds was lost as a result of the decision to cancel the tender. The PAC report is awaiting debate in Parliament.

The other controversy, in which Mr Kimunya was embroiled in, concerns appointment of board members to parastatals under his docket. In a Gazette notice of April 20, Mr Kimunya made 13 appointments to four State corporations with eight appointees said to be from his tribe.

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission and Parliament’s Equal Opportunity Committee have promised to investigate.

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The jury is still out.