PM Raila OdingaCalls for the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga to take political responsibility and, possibly, resign over allegations that his office had presided over misuse of the Kazi Kwa Vijana project funds reached the climax last week as the issue went to the floor of the house during the prime minister’s question time. But the premature and uncoordinated attempts by MPs to pressure the Prime Minister Raila Odinga to take political responsibility over the loss at the Kazi Kwa Vijana project hit a dead end again as the MPs failed to marshal enough evidence and facts to link the PM to wrong doing. Even as the PM admitted in parliament that some inconsistencies were noted in the use of the KKV funds, he strongly defended himself by arguing that his office was not directly responsible for the disbursement of the funds but only played a supervisory role over line ministries that were directly involved. He eventually admitted that Sh107 million out of Sh308 million, which had initially been marked as ineligible expenditure, had been lost through integrity issues.
But there are those who intimate that an elaborate plan had also been hatched by the Raila leaning ODM team to strongly engage the accusers and scuttle debate on the matter by turning it into a G7 Raila contest. Firing the first salvo that helped trivialize the intensity of the situation was inadvertently Eugene Wamalwa who, by his insinuation that some old men in the PM office were pilfering the fund invited the G7 tirade from Ababu Namwamba. The debate was quickly reduced to a PNU/ODM contest.
The PM on his part cleverly deflected question after question amid a strong defence put up by his supporters in parliament in a stormy debate that tottered on the brink of turning chaotic as MPs from both sides lost their tempers and engaged in broadsides that only succeeded in trivializing the matter.
Bonny Khalwale’s belated attempt to steer on the debate was persistently thwarted by points of order that ate into his time and evidence while trivializing the matter even further. The pro Raila team was led by Budalangi MP Ababu Namwamba and nominated Millie Odhiambo who engaged in a spirited defence of the PM saying he is not directly involved in the implementation of the Kazi Kwa Vijana funds loss.
But perhaps the major problem with those who sought to put the PM to account was the authenticity of the documents availed with fears that the house could have been made to depend on incomplete reports. Doubts over the authenticity of the documents presented in an attempt to incriminate the PM only helped to water down the case presented by Ikolomani MP Bonny Khalwale, his Saboti counterpart and G7 figurehead Eugene Wamalwa and Raila’s nemesis in the Rift Valley, Chepalungu Mp Isaac Ruto. The result was an open contest between Raila’s supporters and those perceived to belong to the G7.
The debate in parliament was the culmination of a series of public utterances and condemnations of the PM’ and his team issued at public rallies across the country presided over by MPs mainly of the G7 extraction. Those who had spoken in public and in parliament had likened Raila’s case to the two previous ones where the PM had sought the suspension of the then minister of Agriculture, William Ruto and that of Education, Samuel Ongeri over financial improprieties in their ministries. While Ruto had been accused of involvement in a maize scandal, Ongeri was being taken to task over the disappearance of the free primary education funds.
Those who wanted the PM pinned down were further disappointed by the failure by the World Bank to meet the Parliamentary Accounts Committee team in a meeting that was highly expected to boost the case against the PM’s office. World Bank officials have for the second time in a row failed to appear for a meeting with members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over the alleged scam involving Kazi Kwa Vijana funds.
The officials were initially supposed to have a meeting with PAC on October 27th 2011 but canceled it saying that they had another meeting to attend to in Washington. They then requested that the meeting be rescheduled for November 3rd but did not show up either.
Speaking to journalists in Parliament last Thursday, PAC chairman Bonny Khalwale said that the officials canceled the latest meeting on the grounds that they did not want to get involved in any scam that may have come up between 2008/2009 as they were not funding KKV then. Khalwale had promised to table in the house a comprehensive report after a failed meeting with the World Bank group.
However an earlier statement from parliamentary staff indicated that the officials from the World Bank had canceled the meeting saying they needed more time to prepare.
“In our letter of invitation we informed the World Bank that they were coming here because the KKV programme had featured in our 2008/2009 Auditor General’s report, which raised queries. We also told them that because of the recent events, we were inviting them because we wanted to deliberate on these issues with them,” he explained.
He added that the committee had re-invited the officials for another meeting to be held on November 10th arguing that there was no bad blood between them and Parliament. “We are going to send them another letter and inform them that 2008/2009 is not going to be our core discussion with them. Our main focus would be the current issue,” he stressed.
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