• Waiguru survived an impeachment motion two months ago but senators urged a probe of financial irregularities at the county.
• She claims her woes are politically motivated, linked to 2022 Mt Kenya succession.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Forgery claims prompted the EACC raid at Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru’s homes and those of other senior county officers on Thursday.
Detectives stormed the homes on suspicion some officials were falsifying documents to legitimise the Sh23 million travel allowances under probe.
Officers from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission carted away computers from the county boss’s Kerugoya and Nairobi residences and Kutus offices in the swoop.
Waiguru says her predicament is part of the wider scheme to shape the 2022 succession politics of Mt Kenya.
She claims those after her are only out to divert Kenyans' attention from other multimillion-shilling scandals, adding that she had provided the EACC with the documentation it required.
"This is a decoy. It is intended to detract people who have recently been asking legitimate questions about how massive public monies have been spent," the governor said in a statement after the raid.
"Kenyans are not easily fooled. They can see right through this charade. They know who is behind it and they know why. It is about 2022 politics, period," she said.
But in an application for warrants to search the premises, the EACC said preliminary investigations revealed that a scheme was hatched by the imprest recipients to create false documents.
The EACC, according to the application, said this was aimed at defeating the course of justice by creating documents to support the questionable payments.
The High Court in Nyeri on Wednesday granted the agency orders to search Waiguru’s office, that of chief of staff Sella Barongo, Finance chief officer Patrick Ndathi and that of the head of accounting services.
Detectives also searched the accounts offices as well Waiguru, Barongo, and Ndathi’s residences. The officers were looking for payment documents for all imprests the governor’s office processed in the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20.
They also sought computers, laptops, and iPads used by the Finance chief officer and those used by the chief of staff.
The EACC was also after cheques and cheque books relating to the payments under investigation and documents, records, equipment and information relating to the affairs of the persons under investigation.
The anti-graft agency is investigating allegations of irregular payments of travel imprests to some officials of the county government.
An initial probe, it says, has established that Sh23 million was misappropriated and spent on non-existent trips, or were not accounted for as required by law.
“Preliminary investigations further revealed that the recipients of the imprest did not surrender the same within the time provided by law and in some instances did not surrender at all,” EACC’s Boniface Gachoka says in an affidavit filed in support of the EACC application.
“The EACC believes that the search may yield information concerning the scheme to create the false documents in support of the impugned payments.”
The anti-graft agency's CEO Twalib Mbarak, in a press statement following the search, said the agency is in the process of establishing whether the trips were actually taken and whether the documents supporting the disbursement of the Sh23 million were genuine.
The governor dismissed the figures saying she was surprised that the agency is claiming to be investigating the amount considering the Senate dealt with Sh10 million during her impeachment hearing. She was cleared.
"I wonder where they got this new figure from. Why do they need to shore up the numbers?" the governor asked.
She restated that her case is politically motivated, pointing out audit queries on billions of shillings in uncleared imprest at other agencies.
"It is instructive to note that until my case, surrender of imprests has never been the subject of criminal corruption investigations."
Waiguru asked why the homes of officers with unsurrendered imprests have not been raided, adding that most are being surcharged quietly.
The Senate committee hearing her impeachment case had recommended the EACC investigate the allegations of maladministration and criminal conduct on the part of the governor.
MCAs had claimed Waiguru was irregularly paid travel allowances amounting to Sh10.6 million on non-existent trips.
The committee chaired by Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala concluded that the Senate lacked resources to make a conclusive finding where the allegations are made of a criminal nature.
“The matter is nevertheless serious in nature and may require the relevant organs of government to pursue,” the lawmakers recommended, setting a 60-day window for the June 26 decision.
Senators found that the allegation of the governor conferring herself a benefit was proved but that did not amount to an impeachable offence.
The 11-member committee concluded that there exists a well-orchestrated and complex web of corruption in the tendering process at the county government of Kirinyaga.
(Edited by V. Graham)