Former Justice and Constitution Minister Martha Karua revealed how powerful government operatives plotted to defeat justice in the anglo-leasing scandal.
She was speaking during an interview with KTN's Tony Gachoka where she divulged behind the scene power plays during former President Mwai Kibaki's government.
At the height of the Anglo leasing scandal where Kenya lost Ksh50 billion in controversial contracts, President Uhuru Kenyatta was the then Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.
State operatives hatched a plot to block PAC's funding to stop Uhuru from travelling to London to investigate the scandal.
He was scheduled to former Governance and Ethics Permanent Secretary John Githongo on the multi-billion-shilling scam.
Martha Narrated that when she came to learn of the plan, she prevailed upon the masterminds to drop the plot.
"There was a move to starve the Parliamentary Committee of money so that Uhuru and the Public Accounts Committee could not go to London. I told them we cannot do that so he was facilitated and did a report,” she narrated.
After it became clear to the architects of the scheme to defeat justice that they wouldn't cripple the investigations, they hatched another ploy to make parliament reject the report that PAC would compile.
“But even before he (Uhuru) came back with the report, there was a plot to reject the report because it was going to implicate ministers. I told Kibaki that we had to accept the contents of the report.
“But behind the scenes, the ministers involved were getting jittery that I was setting them up by accepting the report,” Karua recounted.
She then had a talk with the then Finance Minister the late David Mwiraria and convinced him to resign over the damning report.
“When the opposition, led by none other than Uhuru Kenyatta, was pushing the Government because of the Anglo Leasing scandal, I had to advise Kibaki as the minister of Justice. I first went to my Cabinet colleague Mwiraria, who was handling Treasury, and told him that the Government was going to collapse," the iron lady told Tony.
Speaking about the current government and the fight against graft, she urged President Kenyatta to fire the state officials implicated in graft. She also called out Deputy President William Ruto and his allies who have termed the anti-graft war as a witchhunt for certain individuals.
“Kenyans have been treated to a spectacle… there is President Uhuru talking about sustaining the fight against graft but we have a deputy president, sometimes by himself or through his brigade, opposing the purge,” she noted.
