President Uhuru Kenyatta (R) with his deputy William Ruto at a past
function. Growing political restlessness displayed by a few Rift Valley
MPs has forced the Jubilee government into a quick-fix mode, with
President Kenyatta expected to tour the North and Southern Rift Valley
from Monday. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | FILE
Growing political restlessness displayed
by a few Rift Valley MPs has forced the Jubilee government into a
quick-fix mode, with President Kenyatta expected to tour the North and
Southern Rift Valley from Monday.
Sunday Nation has
established that among other emerging political differences, there are
vicious government tender wars pitting parties from both sides of the
coalition who want to control billions of shillings in business deals.
Organisers
of the President’s meeting in Eldoret Monday and Kericho and Bomet on
Tuesday told Sunday Nation the Head of State is visiting to thank the
people for their overwhelming support in the last General Election.
Some
Rift Valley MPs and governors have openly expressed displeasure with
the Jubilee government and complained publicly over frustrations from
some of its top officials
.
.
“This visit is not
impromptu. It is something we organised long ago, and were only waiting
for the President to clear his diary,” said Kericho Senator Charles
Keter.
Mr Keter, who is among the coordinators of the
tour, mobilised MPs to an impromptu leaders’ meeting with Deputy
President William Ruto on Tuesday to discuss the visit.
About
50 United Republican Party (URP) MPs from the region’s six counties of
Bomet, Kericho, Uasin Gishu, Baringo, Elgeyo Marakwet and Nandi attended
the meeting at Mr Ruto’s office on Harambee Avenue.
Baringo
Senator Gideon Moi, Nominated Senator Zipporah Kitony and Kapenguria
MP Samuel Moroto — all of Kanu — were also in attendance.
The
MPs had hoped recent concerns raised by some of their discontented
colleagues would be discussed, but when Aldai MP Cornelly Serem tried to
introduce the agenda, he was stopped by the Deputy President. According
to those present, Mr Ruto is said to have dismissed the matter as a
sideshow distracting them from discussing the venues of the President’s
meeting.
Monday’s visit by the President is said to be a
prescription suggested by his advisers to contain the emerging dissent
and forestall a situation similar to the one that befell former Prime
Minister Raila Odinga, who was deserted and humiliated by voters in the
region.
History could also be repeating itself as the
restlessness in the Jubilee coalition takes the same trajectory as in
2003 when relations between President Kibaki’s NAK and Mr Odinga’s LDP
over the reneging on the former’s part of a pre-election pact.
Then
as now, grumbling began with Mr Odinga’s lieutenants after President
Kibaki announced his Cabinet. And even though Mr Odinga initially
outwardly dismissed the restlessness, rifts developed in the Narc
administration, leading to separation just three years after elections,
ahead of the 2005 referendum on the proposed constitution.
But current National Assembly majority leader Aden Duale says that, unlike 2003, only one MP is shouting himself hoarse.
“In
2003, it was Raila Odinga and his lieutenants who went to the rooftops
to say he had been short-changed, but I can assure you that there is no
grumbling right now. It is (Nandi Hills MP Alfred) Keter who is making
noise, when he should be preparing for his maiden speech in Parliament,”
Mr Duale said, dismissing the legislator.
PROCUREMENT WARS
Though
the differences in Jubilee have been precipitated by impatience over
the sharing of key positions in government, investigations into the
matter also revealed deep disagreements on procurement.
Divergent
views over lucrative tenders and the slow implementation of a 50-50
power-sharing agreement as filed at the Registrar of Political Parties
have been blamed for rising tension in the coalition.
Nandi
Hills MP Alfred Keter has been the most vocal in criticising the
coalition for what he terms an attempt to use the URP wing for selfish
gains while the benefits are contained within the President’s TNA side
of the government.
“I am very worried about my friend
and party leader William Ruto. It is clear that these people want to use
him, but some of us can see that from afar, and we will not allow it,”
Mr Keter said.
He argued that the government has chosen
Mr Ruto as the bearer of some pieces of discouraging news to the public
because they want him to look bad.
“We have seen him
being sent to go and talk about retrenchment in the civil service, in
the same fashion and style that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was
sent to go and evict people from the Mau Forest. The President himself
is yet to make a statement on this. Just last week, we saw the Public
Service Commission (PSC) chairperson contradict the very message they
sent the VP to deliver. He needs to be very careful,” Mr Keter said.
On
the planned presidential visit, Mr Keter said that thanking the
Kalenjin community eight months after the elections looks very awkward
indeed.
“The President and his Deputy have visited
other regions and launched various projects. But when it comes to Rift
Valley, it has to be tied to politics. We want them to come and launch
road projects, factories, things like those. We know his (Mr Kenyatta’s)
visit is a political tour,” Mr Keter said.
He
maintained he will not be silenced about the issues he has raised until
the President starts acting on them. “Other than Cabinet positions,
important positions have been created and dished out to individuals
whose leaning towards TNA is obvious,” he charged.
On
tenders, Mr Keter claimed that there was a “huge appetite by some
unscrupulous businessmen around the President to engage in deals that
could erupt and destroy the government in future.”
“This
recently launched standard gauge railway line construction is a
scandal-in-waiting. Kenyans will lose money in the project and everybody
in government knows it,” the MP said.
BRIBED TO ATTEND LAUNCH
He
also claimed that some unnamed MPs were paid $3,000 (Sh261,000) each to
attend the launch of the project in Mombasa to legitimise it despite
the questions raised.
“MPs are supposed to play
oversight roles; why are they hobnobbing with vendors and suppliers
outside of their oversight responsibilities?”
An
official at the DP’s office, however, claimed that foreigners had tried
to use influential parliamentarians to influence the railway tender by
trying to draw Mr Ruto’s office into it, but the moves were resisted.
“There
are some MPs who were being used by rival vendors to the project. They
came to the DP’s office but were kicked out,” said the official.
It
was then that Mr Ruto’s office wrote to the Attorney-General
questioning the procurement process and attempted to have the project
stopped. But the DP was among the dignitaries at the launch in Mombasa.
Mr
Duale, nevertheless, denied claims that MPs were paid. “If that is
true, then it is indeed serious and Parliament will investigate and deal
with it. As we speak, the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) and
the Parliamentary Investments Committee (PIC) are looking into the
tender process. They will submit their reports by January 10.
“If
the bribery claims are true, we will call in the Ethics and
Anti-Corruption Committee. What is more, Parliament has got its own
powers and mechanism to take action. But until then, those are mere
rumours,” Mr Duale said.
“What I’m saying is I am not aware that MPs were paid to attend the launch of the standard gauge railway,” Duale said.
According
to the majority leader, URP remains part of the Jubilee Coalition, and
its members have “overwhelming confidence in the way the President and
the Deputy President are governing the country”, which, he said, is up
to the letter and spirit of the Coalition agreement.
“Those
making noise about the tenders should know that they (tenders) are
competitively and transparently won. There are no tenders called URP or
TNA,” he said.
Mr Duale shares similar views with his
Senate majority counterpart Prof Kithure Kindiki, also the Tharaka Nithi
Senator. According to Mr Kindiki, there is no problem within Jubilee
“except for a lone voice”. “There is no problem unless you (media) want
to manufacture one. It is media that is creating the perception,” he
said.
There is also an underground battle over the
laptop tender projects where powerful business magnates are using their
closeness to the President’s and Deputy President’s offices in an
attempt to outwit each other as they play middleman for top foreign
companies eyeing the Sh9 billion tender.
That Mr
Kenyatta is keen to deal with any kind of discontent inside his
government for his own smooth stay in power is an open secret.
Early
this week at a book launch by former minister for Agriculture Maina
Wanjigi at the Serena Hotel, the Head of State confronted combative
city lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi, who was among the guests.
“Rafiki
yangu, vita ni ya nini? Tutafutane tuongee (My friend, what are we
fighting about? We should meet and talk),” Mr Kenyatta told him.
The lawyer is among six Judicial Service Commission members whom the President attempted to send home.
A
prominent city lawyer close to the President, who also attended the
meeting, was later tasked to organise a meeting between the two.
Last
week, Ahmednasir criticised the President and his style of leadership
in his weekly column titled “Doubts as to what the true Uhuru stands
for” in the Sunday Nation (December 8, 2013), prompting Mr Kenyatta’s
reaction. The meeting was to take place after the President returned
from South Africa where he joined other world leaders at a memorial
service for Nelson Mandela.
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