AG Muigai, State agencies in blame games over war on corruption

AG Muigai, State agencies in blame games over war on corruption

Attorney-General Githu Muigai and other State officials on Tuesday engaged in blame games over the apparent failure in the fight against corruption at the maiden State House Accountability Summit held in Nairobi.

The summit was launched to appraise gains made in the war on graft and discuss ways to tackle challenges.

In his address, Prof Muigai spoke candidly over the agencies’ failure to deal with corruption, specifically accusing the Judiciary of slow prosecution of graft cases.

“If you have 600 cases in court and only three are being resolved every 6 months then there is a problem. The Judiciary is evidently the weak link in the war on corruption,” said Githu.

In defense of the Judiciary, Justice Paul Kihara said that incompetent State prosecutors were to blame for bringing to court cases without proper preparation.

“We have a backlog of cases but part of the reason is because we have a problem with how investigations are carried out. We have had to send some cases back because the counsels from the Office of Director of Prosecutions (DPP) have failed to show up, and when they do they are unprepared,” said Justice Kihara.

However, DPP Keriako Tobiko moved to exonerate his office, listing the number of cases of high profile personalities that his office has brought to court and successfully convicted.

“As of October 12, 2016 we had in court 873 individuals and 22 companies facing serious corruption cases, 474 of them are high profile individuals,” said Tobiko.

“So far we have cases against five cabinet secretaries, six permanent secretaries, four governors, two senators, 9 MPs, 16 senior county officials and 17 CEOs have been taken before court over serious charges.”

Tobiko noted that his office is on top of the National Youth Service (NYS) scandal, adding that two cases are already in court over the scam with a number of assets frozen.

“Investigations against banks and individuals are ongoing, with the Public Accounts Committee also undertaking an intensive process which seems to unearth what was initially reported.”

“198 cases were concluded between 2009 and 2016, on average a corruption case takes three, four or five years to complete owing to the nature of corruption.”

Muigai further piled pressure on the multi-agency saying he had given them enough evidence to prosecute some corruption cases including the Chickengate scandal, adding that the blame witnessed lies squared in the hands of the other agencies.

In his defense, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations boss Ndegwa Muhoro said that within the multi-agency efforts are being made to increase efficiency in investigations and prosecution.

On the other hand, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission chief executive office Halakhe Waqo noted that they had unearthed that Ksh1.8 billion was lost in the NYS scan and not the reported Ksh791 million

In his address, President Uhuru Kenyatta castigated the State agencies for the perceived failure to deal with corruption, saying everyone should play his part in the war against graft.

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Uhuru kenyatta Keriako Tobiko attorney general Ndegwa Muhoro Githu Muigai

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