Bunge la mwananchi

Since Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat has bragged before a committee of Parliament that he is squeaky clean, dismissing those calling for his exit, including internationally eminent personalities like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, as “a well-orchestrated media based lynch mob,” and has appealed to the rule of law and his “constitutional right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” we demand that the Parliamentary Select Committee on Legal Affairs should investigate grave allegations that he presided over fraud, that included facilitating the theft of public money amounting to millions of shillings, during the Somalia Peace Process.

Documents in our possession point to a web of corruption and profiteering that automatically disqualifies Amb. Kiplagat from holding any public office, let alone heading a process out of which Kenyans expect truth and justice as a foundation for the democratic polity we crave.

Clearly, the documents seem to show that, entrenched as he is in the system, Amb. Kiplagat is beholden to powerful vested interests that will compromise the TJRC should he chair it. Far from being the celebrated peacemaker he claims to be, whose moral integrity is beyond reproach, he really is a disaster merchant who profits from the misfortune of others.

Specifically, with a view to prosecuting him and his accomplices, and recovering the stolen public money and punishing them according to the law, Parliament and the Kenya Anti-corruption Commission should investigate the following grave allegations:

(i) That the Somali Peace Process failed largely because Mr. Kiplagat auctioned it to moneyed vested interests, especially with regard to the selection of elders who eventually negotiated the formation of the dysfunctional transitional government of Somalia.

(ii) That a company by the name Knight Aviation, which was owned by insiders in the Somali Peace Process, was used severally to clandestinely transport illegal delegates into Kenya , and then its astronomically inflated bills would be promptly cleared as a matter of priority.

(iii) That Amb. Kiplagat packed the IGAD Somalia National Reconciliation Conference Secretariat with evidently unqualified spouses and relatives of senior government officials, including his own daughter – a love child who drew a salary and allowances for undisclosed duties.

(iv) That strangely on June 30, 2003, purporting to respond to a letter written more than a year later, on August 4, 2004, by then Conference Coordinator Amb. Mohamed Mahat requesting him to do so, Amb. Kiplagat superfluously and questionably hired the current nominated ODM-Kenya MP Mr Mohammed Afey, then Kenyan ambassador to Somalia and the government representative to the Somali Peace Process, as a consultant to do the same work the government had hired Mr. Afey and was paying him to do. Amb. Kiplagat put Mr. Afey on a hefty retainer of USD3,500 (approximately Kshs.300,000 at the time) per month, and a per diem of “US$200 (approximately Kshs.20,000 at the time) per day for work undertaken outside Nairobi ” over and above his government salary, effective from July 1, 2003. (Please note the strange transaction dates.)

(v) That Amb. Kiplagat authorised irregular financial deals in which senior government officials and their spouses not directly involved in the process, including Permanent Secretaries and ambassadors of Ethiopia , Djibouti , and Kenya were irregularly paid millions of shillings in hefty allowances from the KCB account of the Somali Peace and Reconciliation Process.

(vi) That the procurement process for hotels and other materials was replete with corruption. For instance, certain Nairobi hotels declined to deal with the Somali Peace Process because brokers close to Mr. Kiplagat, especially a Mr. Shido, the proprietor of Barkadle Transporters (which strangely also did business with the Somali Peace Process), were negotiating inflated accommodation packages. And strangely, most hotel bills were settled via third parties, rather than directly to the hotels.

(vii) That Amb. Kiplagat unethically allowed insider trading for senior government officials and people working with the Somali Peace Process. Personally, he traded with the process through his NGO, Africa Peace Forum, which, according to the documents in our possession and others we are privy to, received hefty payments from the KCB account of the Somali Peace and Reconciliation Process.

(viii) That as all this looting was going on, ordinary employees at the secretariat were going for long periods without their salaries due to what Mr. Kiplagat claimed then as lack of funds. Despite the fact that the partners to the Somali Peace Process released all the monies for payment of staff, some are yet to receive their full pay to date, nearly four years since the completion of the Somali Peace Process.

Other than the mismanagement of the Somali Peace Process Amb. Kiplagat has been an appointee of President Kibaki to this and other processes. And having also served the Moi-Kanu regime, Amb. Kiplagat is ill-suited to chair a TJRC that will among others audit the two governments. There is a clear conflict of interest in his being both a judge and either a witness or a defendant in the same court. This is a moral issue not a legal one to be decided by the courts.

The TJRC is supposed to find out the truth, achieve justice and reconcile individuals as an impartial agent of a just society. It must not become a tool of fraud. Amb. Kiplagat just has to quit or be forced out!

Yours faithfully,

Neto Agostinho - 0722-467-365 Date: Saturday, February 27, 2010

National Convener, Kenyans for Justice and Development

PS: The attached pdf file is a small extract from a cashbook showing payments made on the KBC account belonging to the Somalia Peace Process. More incriminating evidence will be handed over to the PSC on Legal Affairs for investigation.