Swazuri and Mbagaya are alleged to have received kickbacks during compensation for land where the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR is built after widespread claims that billions of shillings were paid to undeserving companies and individuals/MOSES MUOKI
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 4 – Parliament has submitted wealth declaration forms of the National Land Commission Chairman Mohammed Swazuri and his deputy Abigael Mbagaya to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission in an investigation about the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) land compensation.
Swazuri and Mbagaya are alleged to have received kickbacks during compensation for land where the Mombasa-Nairobi SGR is built after widespread claims that billions of shillings were paid to undeserving companies and individuals.
Director of Investigations Mohamed Abdi said the documents will help EACC to conclude investigations into graft allegations against the top NLC officials.
Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi oversaw the handing over of the certified copies of the original wealth declaration forms that are by law kept by Parliament.
The forms were handed to EACC in the presence of Swazuri and Mbagaya, who opened the original documents that were resealed after copies were taken for certification.
Muturi who is also the Powers and Privileges Committee Chair assured Swazuri and Mbagaya that the forms will be confidential.
“We keep even for the President, the Deputy President and other State officers and we don’t know what is contained in the wealth declaration forms.”
He said EACC wrote to them on March 20, 2018.
“This is the very first case we are receiving from EACC. We wanted to ensure we follow the Act to ensure we don’t breach the law and the Constitution as well as injuring the persons who make the declarations,” said Muturi.
Abdi told the committee that the forms will not be used for a witch hunt.
“We can confirm to this committee that the forms will only be used for furthering the ongoing investigation and not any other use,” said Mohammed.
Muturi said after receiving the EACC request, Parliament wrote to Swazuri and Mbagaya informing them of the request.
“We met both Dr Swazuri and Mbagaya last week and they confirmed to us that they have no objection to EACC request to access their wealth declaration forms,” Muturi said.
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