It is said that birds of the same feather tend to flock together. Thus it has not surprised anybody that families of the two first presidents of Kenya, namely President Jomo Kenyatta and President Daniel Arap Moi have been very close for sometime now. But what has worried, shocked and really puzzled many is the recent developments that have seen a president elected by Kenyans mainly on the promise of dealing with the political ruling class, now openly warming up to them and their ways. It should be obvious that you do not deal with corruption without touching on the political ruling class.
It raises questions on President Kibaki that will probably be best answered an analyzed when he is out of power.
However for the record, Kenya's first president accumulated land like there was no tomorrow and his kitchen cabinet dealt ruthlessly with anybody who dared stand in their way. That was why many Kenyans supported the ascending into power of a simple former Kalenjin teacher who had to be persuaded for days on end to enetr politics in the first place. Many saw Moi as the sort of character that would never fit it with the emerging political ruling class, and therefore one who would break the country out of the dangerous foundation of looting laid by the first president. Alas, it was not to be. Where the first president had an appetite for rich fertile land (the old man would lick his lips whenever he talked about arthi yenye rotuba meaning fertile land) the second had an insatiable appetite for companies and businesses.
Here is a transparency International list of companies still owned by former President Moi and his associates and proxies;
1.Hostrade World (K)
2.Sian Roses Ltd
3.Mugoya Construction (recently placed under receivership)
4.Chemusian Company
5.Fresh Produce Ltd.
6.Equity Stock Brokers
7.Kent Ship Maritime
8.First Force Security Service
9.Regent Management
10.Signon Freight Ltd
11.Cartrack Kenya Ltd
12.Trade World Kenya
13.Sielei Properties Ltd
14.Giant Holdings Ltd
15.Revak Ltd.
16.Sunbury Investments
17.Sadburu Investments
18.Giant Forex Bureau
19.Westfield Intern Ltd.
20.Chesco Ltd.
21.Ha.mpstead Enterprises
22.Metipso Services Ltd.
23.Maternity Shop
Companies owned by The President's key advisor - Nicholas Biwott
1.Kobil Petroleum
2.Barsirim Investment
3.Kipsinende Farm
4.Rono Ltd
5.BIDCO
6.HZ Construction & Engineering
7.LZ Engineering
8.Yaya Centre
9.Uhuru Highway Development
The President's son - Raymond Moi
Hamco Ltd
The President's son - Philip Moi
1.Paradise Holdings
2.Sheraton Holdings
3.Kahuru Investors
4.General Commodity Dealers
5.Kiharu Investors
6.Concord Holdings
7.Panafcon Engineering
8.Tiger Farm Ltd
9.Ecta Kenya Ltd
10.Syndicate Industries
11.Jutila Enterprises
12.Kimunyu Coffee Plant
Former President Daniel arap Moi
1.AmBank
2.Bain-Hogg Insurance Brokers
3.Lion of Kenya Insurance Company
4.lnsurance Company of East Africa (ICEA)
5.A ranch in Laikipia
6.A large farm in Eldoret
7.A Dairy Farm in the Rift Valley
8.American Life lnsurance Company (K) (ALICO)
9.Kobil/Kenol Petroleum
10.Nairobi Airport Services
11.Transnational Bank
12.The Standard Group Including Kenya Television Network
13.Farms in Kabarak, Sacho, Cherengani, Kilgoris, Mau Narok and Trans Nzoia
14.Rai Plywood of Eldoret
The fascinating thing about this list is that it is not complete. It is estimated to cover only about 30% of the full, complete list. Secondly it is useful to remember that Raila Odinga is on record for defending former President Moi when the then new Narc government wanted to recover most of these assets on behalf of the people of Kenya.
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Monday, January 22, 2007
Samuel Gichuru's Woes: Does Former KPLC Boss Really Have Aids?
One of the mysteries that will hopefully be solved in the near future is how one Samuel Gichuru has remained a free man even after a 2003 probe into the financial mismanagement of the giant Kenya Power And Lighting under his tenure as the managing director unearthed numerous irregularities.
An extremely hilarious incident took place the other day when shortly after a divorce case involving Gichuru—that mainly centered on financial settlement—went public, it was reported that the KACC was investigating the former power boss. I say hilarious because it would seem that this so-called commission that is using up millions every month in taxpayers money, is filed with staffers who comfortably sit in their offices and reads the newspapers to look for whom to prosecute. This happens as the big looters get "cleared" to re-occupy public office that they left only a few months previously under intense public pressure.
There is no doubt that Gichuru's vast wealth, now being fought over by women seemingly emerging from the woodwork, was accumulated during his tenure at Electricity House.
There were many rather creative ways Gichuru and his cronies within the company came up with to raise extra revenue to keep the largest power distribution company in East Africa running amid massive looting. For instance the charge for reconnection of disconnected electricity rapidly rose within a very short time and so did the efficiency in disconnecting electricity right n the dot when the due date arrived.
It is said that another scheme involving insurance coverage for the vast valuable assets of the state corporation also put a lot of money into Gichuru's pockets. As did sales of generators during the power crisis of the year 2000. Even the purchase of transformers at inflated prices (very clever because how many people would know the correct price for a transformer?) helped lace the pockets of the KPLC boss.
Every man who suddenly comes into unlimited wealth tends to end up in some vice. For Gichuru it was always obvious what that vice was. It was women. It is from this weakness that the then fledging new gutter press cashed in, in a major way the late 90s and beyond. It reached point where any new gutter press publisher would simply typeset a Gichuru story detailing his escapades with somebody's wife and they would then go to Electricity House and collect Kshs 100,000. Incidentally this is how one of the most popular and widely read weekly gutter press newspapers was launched.
The consequence of this behavior apart from the court cases is now said to be Aids. It is claimed that the former KPLC boss is HIV positive and this is one of the reasons why there seems to be a desperate battle for his estate being waged by at least three women.
Search engines can give you huge traffic. Here's how a Kenyan company can get thousands of visitors to their site daily.
An extremely hilarious incident took place the other day when shortly after a divorce case involving Gichuru—that mainly centered on financial settlement—went public, it was reported that the KACC was investigating the former power boss. I say hilarious because it would seem that this so-called commission that is using up millions every month in taxpayers money, is filed with staffers who comfortably sit in their offices and reads the newspapers to look for whom to prosecute. This happens as the big looters get "cleared" to re-occupy public office that they left only a few months previously under intense public pressure.
There is no doubt that Gichuru's vast wealth, now being fought over by women seemingly emerging from the woodwork, was accumulated during his tenure at Electricity House.
There were many rather creative ways Gichuru and his cronies within the company came up with to raise extra revenue to keep the largest power distribution company in East Africa running amid massive looting. For instance the charge for reconnection of disconnected electricity rapidly rose within a very short time and so did the efficiency in disconnecting electricity right n the dot when the due date arrived.
It is said that another scheme involving insurance coverage for the vast valuable assets of the state corporation also put a lot of money into Gichuru's pockets. As did sales of generators during the power crisis of the year 2000. Even the purchase of transformers at inflated prices (very clever because how many people would know the correct price for a transformer?) helped lace the pockets of the KPLC boss.
Every man who suddenly comes into unlimited wealth tends to end up in some vice. For Gichuru it was always obvious what that vice was. It was women. It is from this weakness that the then fledging new gutter press cashed in, in a major way the late 90s and beyond. It reached point where any new gutter press publisher would simply typeset a Gichuru story detailing his escapades with somebody's wife and they would then go to Electricity House and collect Kshs 100,000. Incidentally this is how one of the most popular and widely read weekly gutter press newspapers was launched.
The consequence of this behavior apart from the court cases is now said to be Aids. It is claimed that the former KPLC boss is HIV positive and this is one of the reasons why there seems to be a desperate battle for his estate being waged by at least three women.
Search engines can give you huge traffic. Here's how a Kenyan company can get thousands of visitors to their site daily.
General Elections 2007: Focus On Presidential Candidate William Ruto
William Samoei Ruto was born in 1966 in Eldoret to humble beginnings though his family was not as poor as he claims and this is just one of the things that he has lied to Kenyans about in his attempt to endear himself to the public as he goes about his bid for the presidency.
The young Ruto was known to be witty and quickly developed signs of not only being selfish but it is said that the youngster always saw himself as being superior to his peers in the rural setting, although admittedly he seemed to be more intelligent and ambitious than his Kalenjin contemporaries at Kamagut primary school.
Maintaining good grades all through, Ruto secured a place at the university of Nairobi in the early 80's where he undertook an arts degree and on completion returned home where he became an untrained secondary school teacher.
And so we would never have heard of him had his big break not come in 1991. By a twist of fate that year, he managed to meet former president Moi's favorite son Gideon and the two got on so well and became bosom buddies with William doubling up as Gideon's alter ego and political hatchet man.
He however shot to the limelight in 1992 when he was appointed as one of the officials who were to spearhead former president Moi's campaign among the youth through the notorious lobby group the Youth for Kanu 92 better known as YK92.
As the groups' secretary to this well funded political lobby group, the young and ambitious Ruto started handling real money and as the funds flowed in from public coffers, Ruto managed to keep quite a substantial amount for himself without other officials knowing about it.
This was not too difficult because during that memorable campaign which impoverished millions of Kenyans, the chairman and former Lugari MP and now KADDU party chairman Cyrus Jirongo supervised the dishing out of money on a scale that had never been seen in Kenya and probably Africa, before. Several witnesses say that Cartons of cash (all in Kshs 500 notes) were stacked from the bottom and touched the roof at the YK92 offices at Anniversary Towers. Even today, it is mind boggling just to imagine the scene. The idea was simple, each official was to supervise the mass bribery of voters to ensure that President Moi was voted back to power.
The young and ambitious Ruto did exactly that but most of the money he received ended up in his pockets and instead, he chose to use his mouth more as he convinced angry and hungry Kenyans to vote for Moi.
With the Kanu victory secured later that year, Ruto and other top officials in the lobby group became Moi's blue eyed boys and were quickly introduced to the corruption networks that were running then, where they made millions of shillings, quite often overnight.
Ruto ignored the smaller deals and quickly identified where the real quick money was in these corruption networks. According to the constitution, the president still has authority to allocate land to private citizens including prime plots in Nairobi. And that is how the former untrained teacher managed to acquire prime pieces of land in Nairobi which he subsequently sold to parastatals at highly inflated prices and invested most of the money in real estate and agriculture.
To date, he still has a corruption case in court where he is charged with acquiring public property hived off Ngong Forest, which he later sold to the Kenya pipeline corporation at an inflated cost running into hundreds of millions.
The matter is yet to be heard and determined as the Eldoret MP has filed numerous objections based on constitutional references over the matter but that is another story.
In 1997, the young Ruto felt he was rich and well known to vie for the Eldoret North parliamentary seat which he secured and was appointed assistant minister.
To date Ruto is the only assistant minister in Kenya's history who attended cabinet meetings to the chagrin of fully-fledged ministers who feared Moi so much that they could not dare question the anomaly.
By this time, Ruto had acquired a big fortune through corruption and even his appointment as a full minister in Moi's government did not excite him much in terms of power but was convenient for him as he continued looting public coffers.
It should also be noted that Ruto knew how to handle Moi and even blackmail him through embarrassing public utterances, which prompted the former president to pass more cash in Ruto's way to make him content and to effectively stop his bickering.
Today, Ruto has changed his old Kanu jacket and is currently attempting to convince Kenyans that he is not the selfish and greedy type as he goes for the highest office in the land but majority of Kenyans probably including his good self know very well that he can't make it anywhere near the presidency.
What is there is that Ruto has not changed much and his presidential bid is to simply put him in a good position when ODM Kenya is dividing the "national cake" assuming that they manage to wrestle power from president Kibaki in general elections 2007.
Ruto will be more than content if he is appointed to the cabinet then as this will put him in a position to protect his ill-gotten wealth and perhaps accumulate more at the expense of Kenyans who mostly live below the poverty line and on less than a dollar a day. His criminal court case could even disappear with a little pressure from the executive arm of government then. After all it has happened many times before.
Search engines can give you huge traffic. Here's how a Kenyan company can get thousands of visitors to their site daily.
The young Ruto was known to be witty and quickly developed signs of not only being selfish but it is said that the youngster always saw himself as being superior to his peers in the rural setting, although admittedly he seemed to be more intelligent and ambitious than his Kalenjin contemporaries at Kamagut primary school.
Maintaining good grades all through, Ruto secured a place at the university of Nairobi in the early 80's where he undertook an arts degree and on completion returned home where he became an untrained secondary school teacher.
And so we would never have heard of him had his big break not come in 1991. By a twist of fate that year, he managed to meet former president Moi's favorite son Gideon and the two got on so well and became bosom buddies with William doubling up as Gideon's alter ego and political hatchet man.
He however shot to the limelight in 1992 when he was appointed as one of the officials who were to spearhead former president Moi's campaign among the youth through the notorious lobby group the Youth for Kanu 92 better known as YK92.
As the groups' secretary to this well funded political lobby group, the young and ambitious Ruto started handling real money and as the funds flowed in from public coffers, Ruto managed to keep quite a substantial amount for himself without other officials knowing about it.
This was not too difficult because during that memorable campaign which impoverished millions of Kenyans, the chairman and former Lugari MP and now KADDU party chairman Cyrus Jirongo supervised the dishing out of money on a scale that had never been seen in Kenya and probably Africa, before. Several witnesses say that Cartons of cash (all in Kshs 500 notes) were stacked from the bottom and touched the roof at the YK92 offices at Anniversary Towers. Even today, it is mind boggling just to imagine the scene. The idea was simple, each official was to supervise the mass bribery of voters to ensure that President Moi was voted back to power.
The young and ambitious Ruto did exactly that but most of the money he received ended up in his pockets and instead, he chose to use his mouth more as he convinced angry and hungry Kenyans to vote for Moi.
With the Kanu victory secured later that year, Ruto and other top officials in the lobby group became Moi's blue eyed boys and were quickly introduced to the corruption networks that were running then, where they made millions of shillings, quite often overnight.
Ruto ignored the smaller deals and quickly identified where the real quick money was in these corruption networks. According to the constitution, the president still has authority to allocate land to private citizens including prime plots in Nairobi. And that is how the former untrained teacher managed to acquire prime pieces of land in Nairobi which he subsequently sold to parastatals at highly inflated prices and invested most of the money in real estate and agriculture.
To date, he still has a corruption case in court where he is charged with acquiring public property hived off Ngong Forest, which he later sold to the Kenya pipeline corporation at an inflated cost running into hundreds of millions.
The matter is yet to be heard and determined as the Eldoret MP has filed numerous objections based on constitutional references over the matter but that is another story.
In 1997, the young Ruto felt he was rich and well known to vie for the Eldoret North parliamentary seat which he secured and was appointed assistant minister.
To date Ruto is the only assistant minister in Kenya's history who attended cabinet meetings to the chagrin of fully-fledged ministers who feared Moi so much that they could not dare question the anomaly.
By this time, Ruto had acquired a big fortune through corruption and even his appointment as a full minister in Moi's government did not excite him much in terms of power but was convenient for him as he continued looting public coffers.
It should also be noted that Ruto knew how to handle Moi and even blackmail him through embarrassing public utterances, which prompted the former president to pass more cash in Ruto's way to make him content and to effectively stop his bickering.
Today, Ruto has changed his old Kanu jacket and is currently attempting to convince Kenyans that he is not the selfish and greedy type as he goes for the highest office in the land but majority of Kenyans probably including his good self know very well that he can't make it anywhere near the presidency.
What is there is that Ruto has not changed much and his presidential bid is to simply put him in a good position when ODM Kenya is dividing the "national cake" assuming that they manage to wrestle power from president Kibaki in general elections 2007.
Ruto will be more than content if he is appointed to the cabinet then as this will put him in a position to protect his ill-gotten wealth and perhaps accumulate more at the expense of Kenyans who mostly live below the poverty line and on less than a dollar a day. His criminal court case could even disappear with a little pressure from the executive arm of government then. After all it has happened many times before.
Search engines can give you huge traffic. Here's how a Kenyan company can get thousands of visitors to their site daily.
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