- Former official said his committee did not issue the advisory as claimed by Swazuri.
- Suspended CEO told PAC that Swazuri usurped its powers
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Former National Land Commission chairman Muhammad Swazuri has been put on the spot after a former top official denounced his claim for an irregular Sh12 billion SGR payout.
Konyimbih Mboya who chaired the Land Acquisition Committee of the NLC on Wednesday told the National Assembly's Public Accounts Committee that his team was not involved in the decision to delegate compensation of Sh12 billion to Kenya Railways Corporation.
Swazuri last month told PAC that the decision to have KRC make the compensation on behalf of the commission was informed by an advisory from the acquisition committee.
However, Mboya said the committee he chaired did not give such an advisory and that he was in the dark about Swazuri’s letter to KRC okaying the payments.
“I checked my records on that matter and you remember that the former NLC chairman had mentioned that my committee advised him to have KRC remit the payments on behalf of NLC because it did not have the structure. Our committee did not advise because if we did, the letter to KRC should have been copied to us. This document signed by our former chairman... I'm seeing for the first time,” Mboya said.
Suspended CEO Tom Chavangi who appeared alongside Mboya also accused Swazuri of usurping his powers after it emerged that KRC was directly communicating with the chairman instead of the CEO as is the norm.
“I can categorically state that my powers were usurped,” Chavangi said.
Earlier, PAC had a session with former KRC boss Atanas Maina who confirmed that all his communication was channelled through Swazuri.
Maina who was the managing director at the state corporation came under fire over the direct multi-billion payment to landowners, a mandate that the Constitution gives to the National Land Commission.
Maina was at pains to explain why KRC breached the law and irregularly took over a function of another government entity.
The irregular transaction was flagged by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu in her special report of NLC compensation between 2014 and 2017.
The parcels of land and developments which were on the SGR project route were located in Makueni, Nairobi, Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties.
KRC received Sh17.7 billion in its SGR Land Compensation account out of which Sh5.7 billion was transferred to NLC for onwards compensation to project affected persons with the corporation making the remainder of payments.
“The special audit notes that there was a delegation of responsibility affected on October 6, 2014, whereby the NLC delegated the role of dispensing payments to KRC under direct supervision through a letter from the chairman of NLC to the MD of KRC, stating the reasons for the delegation as the urgency of the SGR project,” Gathungu said in her report.
Defending the payments, Maina told the MPs that KRC made the compensation upon request by the commission which by that time lacked capacity.
He was unable to produce any letter from NLC indicating the commission lacked the capacity to disburse the cash to project affected persons.
In all its communication, NLC cited ‘urgency of the project’ as the reason for the delegation of the mandate.
“The whole process of valuation was done by the NLC, KRC only disbursed the cash using schedule provided by the commission. Our role was just payment and at the end of it we submitted a report to NLC on who has been paid,” Maina said.
The PAC is chaired by Ugunja MP Opiyo Wandayi.
MPs demanded proof of NLC incapacity after it emerged that the commission had around that time engaged in compensation for other government entities.
“There is nowhere in the letters where the commission is said to be having capacity challenges. NLC had been doing similar tasks for other government entities during that period. Why was Swazuri able to pay in other agencies and unable to pay for KRC?” Wandayi posed.
“The most tedious process is not even payment. If NLC could do valuation and compile the schedule, it is not tenable that it did not have the capacity,” Funyula MP Wilberforce Oundo said.
Garissa Township MP Aden Duale termed the arrangement suspicious and a clear breach of the law.
KRC made the compensation without a valuation report and instead relied squarely on payment schedules provided by the commission.
Maina said at one time he wrote to the commission to provide the valuation reports and received no response.
Edited by P.O