President Kibaki came into power with a very convincing clarion call that he repeated at every opportunity and which did not omitt the words; zero tolerance to corruption. But naïve Kenyans failed to ask the right questions which had they asked, would have told them that this was one president who was NOT going to avoid corruption.
When it was decided that Kibaki would be the presidential candidate for the opposition in the 2002 elections that propelled him to state house, a clique of rich men came forward and stated that they would be responsible for raising the much needed funds to bankroll his presidential campaign.
Among these people was a super rich contractor known as Ephraim Maina of Kirinyaga construction company. In the rare event that you have never heard of the name of the person or his company, his company was notoriously known for doing shoddy jobs on roads or not doing anything after being paid huge sums of cash to repair the same.
To date, the Nyeri-Sagana road is dilapidated thanks to Kirinyaga construction who have already been paid to repair the road but nothing much has been done. Maina even went ahead and used his influence to stop councilors from Nyeri visiting state house recently after he got wind that the poor state of the road was in their agenda list.
Maina is said to be so well connected that even when Raila Odinga was minister for public works and roads, he blacklisted Kirinyaga construction and ordered treasury not to pay him his dues but the then finance minister David Mwiraria went ahead and released Maina's millions.
The flamboyant contractor is also known for his famous goat eating parties in his rural home which is usually attended by cabinet ministers including the current finance minister Amos Kimunya amongst many other top government and parastatal bosses.
Maina who is nursing political ambitions comes from Kibaki's Nyeri home district and is said to have started making his millions during the Moi era where road contractors were considered among the richest Kenyans as this was where corruption was at its worst with contractors over quoting jobs by several hundred millions and dividing the difference with senior civil servants.
President Kibaki should however not pretend that he did not know where his campaign funds came from as it was clear to him that there were plenty of unscrupulous businessmen who chipped in towards his campaign and these men naturally expected favors back when he landed at State house.
Some of them were content with plum parastatal appointments, read Eddy Njoroge and Joe Wanjui but others were strictly profiteers and were in a hurry to recover their money and needed lucrative government contracts as soon as possible to do so. The likes of Maina fell in this group.
Unfortunately, these will be the same people that Kibaki will reach out to when he goes about raising funds for the forthcoming general elections and chances are that these men will donate even more generously so as to ensure that the status quo is maintained at all costs.
It is this same people who have made Kibaki's government unpopular with accusations of failing to deal with high level corruption. Though they will be instrumental in vouching for Kibaki's return, they might also be responsible of causing the presidents defeat in the hands of an increasingly popular opposition.
This whole unfortunate chain of events raises the big question of how presidential candidates should raise funds for their campaigns. This is an issue that we will tackle in this blog in the coming days, watch this space.
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