Waiguru drags DP Ruto’s name into NYS scam

The saga of the multi million shillings looting of the National Youth Service got murkier today (Tuesday) after former Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru sensationally linked Deputy President William Ruto and his close associates to the scam.

In an affidavit filed in court, Waiguru claimed she had been informed by the then acting senior deputy director general of NYS, Adan Harakhe, of a claim by one of the suspects, Ben Gethi, that the illegal payments totaling over Sh800 million were for companies associated with finance CS Henry Rotich who was allegedly Ruto’s point man.

While insisting that she was not at all involved in the saga, Waiguru also linked close associates of the deputy president including his personal assistant Farouk Kibet, Senator Kipchumba Murkomen and Leader of Majority in Parliament Aden Duale to the saga.

The damning affidavit sworn by former devolution secretary Anne Waiguru has essentially thrown a spanner in the works of a probe to establish just who was involved in the theft of the Sh791 million from NYS.

During the initial investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Duale and Murkomen, according to Waiguru, threatened the former assistant director of NYS Aden Harakhe, warning him of dire consequences should he fail to instruct the DCI to stop the investigations.

Waiguru claims that Harakhe informed her through a memo that Murkomen had visited him in his office after he was allegedly directed by then Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti.

Waiguru filed an annexure of a memo allegedly written by Harakhe to her in June 2015 detailing how the scam evolved.

In the memo, Harakhe writes: “Those payments were for companies associated with CS Rotich who assisted us to get funding and other wazees. I will introduce you to a young man called Ben, sit with him and agree how to finalise the issues.” That ws former PS Peter Mangiti instructing Harakhe.

Then Ben Gethi is later reported to have claimed to be the point man for CS Rotich.

He is reported to have further told Harakhe: “You are from the field, we shall teach you how to survive in the city and government offices.”

According to Waiguru, Senator Kipchumba Murkomen at around the same time visited her office and stated that he represented his clients whose funds had been stopped at IFMIS and bank accounts frozen by the DCI. The frozen accounts were mainly associated with Josephine Kabura and Ben Gethi.

Waiguru claims Harakhe did not bow to pressure from Murkomen.

She further claimed that during the entire period, there was constant communication between the deputy president’s personal assistant Farouk Kibet and Ben Gethi on phone, some of them lasting for hours.

The former CS insists she was the whistle-blower and not a perpetrator of the scam.