Hunter turned hunted: Anti-graft boss faces heat over suspect NYS tenders

As a career auditor, the often silent and media-shy Philip Kinisu has literally been the hunter, keeping trail of financial decisions that top executives make in the course of their work. But a series of events have last week propelled him back to the limelight as a man who has to speak out loud to defend his job.

A feeble voice would mean the cause for which he has fought diligently over the last six months may come tumbling down, tossing him off his high pedestal and taking down with him the tough stance reputation he has built over decades.

Even as he appeared to address the media this week over claims of conflict of interest and questions of integrity, Mr Kinisu kept his calm demeanour, looking directly into the cameras with a-nothing-to-hide attitude.

What has placed him in hot soup is a revelation that his company Esaki Limited had interactions with the graft-tainted National Youth Service (NYS) alluding to the fact that the anti-corruption watchdog has a clear conflict of interest and no ethical mandate to investigate the Sh791 million scandal that dogs the agency.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) chairman maintains that he is a man under siege, blaming his woes on the faceless “corruption fighting back” and threatening to hound him out of office with calls for him to step aside coming from various quarters.

“My resigning would set a terrible precedence because anybody can go out there and fabricate allegations to serve their interests whenever they see public officials acting in a way that threatens their interests,” he said.

Mr Kinisu is an accountant with close to 40 years experience in the private sector and top skills like auditing, financial analysis and reporting
He was viewed as the perfect candidate to take up the role of fighting the monster which gobbles up more than Sh500 billion annually from the government coffers.

Critics have queried

His company was paid Sh35.4 million to supply borehole materials to the NYS between October 2014 and November 2015.

Critics have queried why he did not make these interactions public when he was being vetted prior to his appointment. His answer is simple; “all contracts had been tendered for and the interactions happened before I took office (EACC chairman).”

“I envisage an independent EACC where the commission oversights and provides policy direction and the secretariat reports to it. The secretariat is the technical arm of the commission. I know there will be political pressure but there are ways to deal with political interference,” he told Parliament’s Justice and Legal Affairs committee during his vetting.

When the EACC was reconstituted and the new commissioners took office in January, Mr Kinisu said they would take time to learn the ropes before launching “full assault on corruption” rather than hit the ground running despite a number of high-profile cases that were pending.

He has openly stated that he has been a director at Esaki from inception until April 19, 2016 and brushes aside his current listing as one at the Registrar of Companies as a case of government records not being updated.

He has also admitted that Esaki has received payments from the government amounting to Sh246 million between March 2015 and June this year.
He has been categorical that this monies did not come from the NYS.

Mr Kinisu began his career as an audit trainee after graduating with a first class honours in Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting and Finance from the University of Nairobi in 1979.

The Certified Public Accountant (Kenya) worked with Deloitte in the United Kingdom for two years and nine months before joining Consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

He finally left PwC on July 20, 2014 after a 34 year stay where he rose through the ranks from partner, to Territory Senior Partner then higher up the corporate ladder to chief executive and finally becoming the chairman of the firm’s Africa Governance Board.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants fellow is passionate about causes that lead to economic empowerment, poverty alleviation and environment.
In 2014 he was among an 11-member team given a seven-month mandate to audit the impact of the implementation of the Constitution on the economy.

The team of experts found a Sh50 billion spending discrepancy in the National government’s wage bill despite the transfer of thousands of employees and their wages.

It seems to be the same fate that befell his predecessors Mumo Matemu, P.L.O Lumumba and Aaron Ringera is now knocking on his doors.

Mr Matemu, from whom Kinisu took the helm, bowed out in May last year after President Kenyatta formed a tribunal to investigate his conduct.
Whether it is question of history repeating itself or the top seat being too hot to handle only time will tell.

The tough looking accountant is however confident that the ongoing investigations by the multi-agency team will vindicate him of all alleged wrong doing.

“When I was coming in I could not believe this level of distortion and malice was possible maybe I was naïve on the hand I did not expect this would be a walk in the park either.

One of the performance indicators of institutions like the EACC should be the amount of disaffection you receive because when you touch corruption sensitive areas it is likely to come up with such insinuations,” he said.
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