The House Public Accounts Committee members led by their Chairman Nicholas Gumbo took issue with Waiguru’s attempt to ‘sanitize’ Harakhe/LABAN WANAMBISI
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 3 – Former Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru was hard-pressed to fend off allegations from Members of Parliament that she was shielding the suspended National Youth Service Senior Deputy Director-General Adan Harakhe.
The House Public Accounts Committee members led by their Chairman Nicholas Gumbo took issue with Waiguru’s attempt to ‘sanitize’ Harakhe in his role in the fraud despite he being the appointed an Authority to Incur Expense holder for the Service.
A visibly frustrated Gumbo traded heated exchanges on the matter after Waiguru stated that no money had been lost from the fund during the time that the Harakhe was the AIE holder.
“We cannot be sitting here and accepting documents which are inaccurate with Madame Waiguru sitting there. Harakhe has been here, it is a known fact and it cannot be something that you did not know, Harakhe was appointed AIE holder in February 24, 2015 and now you are saying in this statement which is laudatory you are trying to say all was well when he was there,” he said.
“But the facts are that Harakhe was designated into the system and I have made tabulations – and don’t doubt my maths because I am an engineer- from the time Harakhe was designated into the system over Sh400 million was lost.”
Waiguru had insisted that the former NYS Director-General Nelson Githinji was fully in charge when Sh791 million disappeared.
The former CS said Harakhe was the whistle-blower in the attempted theft of Sh695.4million at the NYS.
But MPs told her that cybercrime detectives recovered from Harakhe’s machine several payments with transaction numbers, which he had approved between May 21 to 22, 2015.
“The gracious lady before us is a brilliant lady we have known her before. The presentation was deliberate and the mood of presentation was such that as she repeatedly said; Harakhe was not there, Harakhe was not there. Let us see how Githinji approved the looting of 791million,” said Timothy Bosire (Kitutu Masaba).
The detectives said that from Harakhe’s browser history it was evident that he had approved the payments using his own credentials and that claims of password theft were merely an afterthought.
When Githinji appeared before the Committee last month, he claimed Harakhe’s reporting line was in breach of his appointment letter dated November 27, 2014, which indicated that he was to work under the supervision of the then NYS Director- General.
Githinji told MPs that Harakhe had access to the government’s Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) even before his formal appointment as an Authority to Incur Expenditure (AIE) holder in February 9, 2015.
Another point argument between the committee and Waiguru was when she claimed that the Public Service Commission (PSC) had approved the creation of the official title of ‘Senior Deputy Director-General’ which did not exist in the chain of command of the NYS.
Former Devolution Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti and Githinji told the House team that the post was created specifically for Harakhe, and that apart from getting the Authority to Incur Expenditure, he also was made head of key departments.
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