Former Devolution PS Peter Mang'iti yesterday told Parliament he prevented former Devolution CS Anne Waiguru and her associates from stealing another Sh3.5 billion from NYS.
In a bare-knuckle attack on his former boss, he explained he refused to approve dubious contracts worth Sh3.5 billion. These had been presented for his signature as the ministry's accounting officer.
Detailing how Waiguru frustrated him and used her advisers to loot NYS, Mangiti tabled documents, including confidential memos showing how badly the ministry was run and how he was frustrated and at times insulted.
Waiguru, who resigned at the height of the scandal over "poor health", testifies today.
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Mang'iti shocked the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee when he said advisers were under strict instructions to only report to the CS. There was a parallel management structure that undermined operations, Mang'iti said.
He said he was consistently sidelined and powerless.
Dressed in an immaculate navy blue suit, sky-blue shirt and red tie, Mang'iti testified in the probe of the scam involving Sh1.6 billion. The initial figure had been Sh791 million.
The session lasted In a session that lasted eight hours and was broadcast live by several television stations,
He said he was not able to take appropriate control of many things from his boss and her advisers because "she would never listen."
Asked why the former athletics champion did not dash out of the ministry, Mang'iti said he was "not a quitter".
"I informed the head of Public service Joseph Kinyua several times about my frustrations and he asked me to hang in there," Mangiti told MPs who listened keenly.
Mang'iti, named Betty Maina and Mutahi Nguyi as among the advisers who worked with NYS Deputy Director Adan Harake and chairman of the immaterialness committee Noor Hassan Noor to push through some of the contracts and deals in question.
Systemic structural failures, a poor leadership style and vested interests, he said, facilitated siphoning of cash from the NYS under Waiguru's supervision.
Mang'iti came armed with documents and appeared determined to expose those behind the NYS scam. He was calm throughout.
This contrasted with the testimony on Tuesday of Josephine Kabura, the chief conduit of the vast NYS heist, who frustrated the committee's efforts to get to the bottom of the shady payments.
She was evasive and "forgetful", even in a closed-door session that she requested because she said her life was endanger if she named names.
The team was frustrated, angry and resorted to Bible verses to persuade her to be candid.
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Mang'iti is in court fighting charges of complicity in the NYS scam.
He said he was innocent and that those who stole from NYS were freely roaming the streets.
Mang'iti told the committee Waiguru deployed her advisers to oversee implementation of multi-million projects, through which taxpayers were swindled. He cited the youth empowerment programme in Kibera.
"On matters about restructuring NYS, certain officials reported directly to the Devolution CS," he said.
"Heads of departments of accounts and procurement were informed not to report to me by Waiguru," he testified.
"Waiguru deployed her personal assistants to supervise procurement department."
He said he was forced to warn his staff not to abdicate their duties because of the influence of Waiguru's "so-called advisers".
Mang'iti said he did not have any role in the Integrated Financial Management System, the online payment tool intended to promote transparency but used to loot NYS.
"I had no intervention role as an accounting officer in the Ifmis system. You make me an accounting officer without instruments, then you expect me to be supernatural to see transactions happening at 3am?" he said.
Despite his complaints to Treasury, he was not given access to Ifmis, Mang'iti said.
The sacked PS said Waiguru created a parallel reporting and command structure in the State Department, where she frequently used Hassan Noor, the Secretary for Administration.
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Mang’iti said Waiguru personally requested Sh5 billion supplementary budgetary allocation but only approved Sh3.5 billion.
However, the supplementary budget request did not originate from NYS as it should have.
“I had difficulties to have ministry and NYS staff work coherently in Kibera because of the advisers who were planted there and were giving instruction, including to the senior NYS staff,” Mang’iti said.
The former PS revealed major NYS realignment was micromanaged by Waiguru and her advisors, leaving him as accounting officer isolated and powerless.
“The structures resulted into instructions spiraling down as presidential directives, despite some of the commitments requiring huge financial input from my office. The advisers were only available to the CS, not even to me,” Mang’iti said.
It emerged that Waiguru personally groomed Noor (Secretary Administration) and Adan Harakhe (Senior NYS Deputy Director General) — who swiftly rose to become her right-hand men, rending Mang'iti inconsequential
Harakhe had authority to incur expenditure, while Noor literally acted as the de facto PS, dislodging Mang'iti from the operational structure.
Mang’iti said whenever he asked about parallel instructions to him through junior staff, “I was isolated even further."
“I was kept waiting at the CS’s office for more than one hour only to be ushered in to be dressed down by two people," including my junior," he said.
He said Waiguru personally took charge of the requisitions set aside for 30 per cent youth and women, instead of the appropriate officers.
“The letters were dispatched to Hassan Noor and chairman of the ministerial tender committee for action,” he said.
He said Waiguru instructed heads of departments, including Finance and Procurement, to report to Noor, not to him.
“ I wrote a letter instructing the tendering committee to strictly adhere to law, but the CS was furious that the letter was unnecessary,” he said.
He was taken to task by the committee over his signing a letter promoting Harakhe to Senior Deputy Director. He said he signed the letter under duress and under instruction from Waiguru.
“Lawfully I signed the letter on her behalf as the authorized officer, I can’t disown the letter because it bears my signature,” he said, “ CS had told me they had discussions with the Public Service Commission and that they were waiting for the letter to appoint Harakhe.”
He said Consulting House, a company associated with political analyst Mutahi Ngunyi, was hired to restructure and rebrand NYS to facilitate Harakhe’s deployment.
“The CS never found it necessary to engage me at all. Instead she propagated a narrative to her political allies that I was a mole and saboteur of government. I morphed from a hardworking civil servant to wear an ethnic tag,” he said.