Lawmakers probing the NYS mega theft have clashed over recommendations indicting influential figures in the Jubilee administration.
On Wednesday, at a Mombasa hotel, the watchdog parliamentary
committee planned to adopt recommendations about the Sh1.8 billion National Youth Service heist.
Committee sources have told the Star, however, that members differed sharply over an alleged plot to dilute the content and protect important people. This forced the 27-member National Assembly Public Accounts Committee to postpone the meeting to next Tuesday to allow for consensus-building. It is chaired by Rarieda MP Nicholas Gumbo of ODM.
“What we were given to adopt was just a skeleton, the meat had been expunged for reasons we don’t know,” a committee member, who did not want to be named, said.
A group of MPs were reportedly lobbying to have some individuals with powerful links to the presidency shielded from indictment. This sparked a face-off in which accusations and counter-accusations were traded.
Another faction of MPs was pushing to expunge adverse recommendations involving commercial banks found culpable of complacency in aiding theft of public funds.
Some 28 banks were identified as having transacted NYS proceeds. Last year, someMPs claimed a close senior relative of a top leader in the executive and a commercial bank gave money to legislators to dilute the NYS probe report.
The MPs said the bank paid Sh40 million not to be found culpable in the probe over the loss of Sh1.8 billion. The initial figure of the money lost was Sh791 million.
“We spent a lot of time in our last session looking into the circumstances under which billions of shillings were looted from the NYS.But we were shocked in Mombasa when we found out that what we established before we broke for recess had been significantly altered,” the source said. At the heart of the stalemate is an alleged attempt to protect two individuals, one linked to the Kenyatta family.
There were also reports of shielding DP William Ruto’s aide Farouk Kibet and Elgeyo Marakwet Senator Kipchumba Murkomen.
Kibet was in constant communication with the NYS suspects and made 150 calls to suspect Ben Gethi in the weeks preceding the NYS scandal.