Anglo-Leasing claims first victim as former PS is fined

Former permanent secretary Sylvester Mwaliko was hardly one week in office in 2000 when he signed papers awarding a multi-billion-shilling passports tender in favour of the shadowy Anglo-Leasing and Finance Limited.

Thursday, he paid dearly for the transaction after the anti-corruption court found him guilty of abuse of office and slapped a Sh3 million fine on him with the alternative of serving a three-year term in prison.

Senior principal magistrate Lucy Nyambura said the prosecution had provided enough evidence to prove that being the person in charge at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Mr Mwaliko had arbitrarily facilitated the award of the contract to Anglo-Leasing.

“This was done without the knowledge of the Immigration Department and without verifying the status of the company before agreeing to enter into contract with it,” the magistrate said.

Ms Nyambura further noted that Mr Mwaliko had acted without direct approval of the Vice-President and in disregard of the guidelines provided in the Exchequer and audit regulations.

Through his lawyer, Jane Githinji, Mr Mwaliko had argued that he only signed an already negotiated contract.

“My client joined the ministry in 2000 and since he was new, he was only tasked with signing an already negotiated contract,” she said, terming the prosecution’s evidence as “ridiculous”.

Ms Githinji said key witnesses had cleared her client from blame on the grounds that he acted under instructions.

She also argued that no tangible evidence had been brought before court showing that Mr Mwaliko had acted arbitrarily in negotiating the tender or bestowed a benefit on any company as alleged in the charge sheet.

Mr Mwaliko also told the court that he had authenticated the existence of the Anglo-Leasing company before signing the contract.

“He verified the government’s recurrent budget of 2002/2003 and established that the government had been doing business with the company for some time,” Ms Githinji said.

Other witnesses, who testified in the case, also admitted that the government had recovered money that had been paid out to Anglo-Leasing and “in the circumstances, there was no reason to hold the former PS responsible.”

Former Attorney-General Amos Wako, who testified in the case, had told the court that all the money paid to Anglo-Leasing had been returned to the Treasury after the contract was found to have been invalid.

Ms Githinji had further argued that Mr Mwaliko’s letters to Anglo-Leasing were within the law since they contained advices to the ministers and not offers for the signing of the contract agreement.

Ms Nyambura had on March 1 acquitted former Treasury permanent secretary Joseph Magari and two other senior civil servants — David Lumumba Onyonka and Wilson Sitonik — for lack of evidence.

She, however, said Mr Mwaliko had a case to answer and consequently placed him on his defence.

Lawyers for Mr Magari, Mr Onyonka and Mr Sitonik had said in their written submissions that the evidence adduced by prosecution witnesses did not meet the threshold required by law to put their clients on their defence.

Mr Fred Ngatia, who represented Mr Magari, argued that the evidence by the prosecution had clearly exonerated his client from the infamous scandal and urged the court to clear his client of all the charges levelled against him.

Mr Mwaliko had also pleaded to be acquitted on the grounds that an accused person should not be put on his defence merely to fill in the missing links in the prosecution’s chain of evidence. 

The prosecution summoned more than 22 witnesses during the trial.