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Kalonzo shuttle diplomacy cost Sh267m
Former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka with ambassador Josephine Gaita chat with local residents in Trevizo, Italy, at a past event. Photo/File
Former vice president Kalonzo Musyoka used Sh267 million on a diplomacy drive meant to transfer cases from the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
Mr Musyoka was unsuccessfully fighting to have President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto tried at alternative cities.
He toured a number of African and western capitals under President Kibaki’s instructions but has since bitterly fallen out with the duo over politics.
Documents tabled before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), to put in perspective Mr Ruto’s controversial tour of four West African nations in May, also show that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga spent Sh62 million between January and November 2012 to visit four countries.
Luxury jet
The committee heard that Mr Ruto’s tour of Congo Brazzaville, Nigeria, Algeria and Ghana was sanctioned by the president.
In a new turn of events, Abdul Mwasera, the administrative secretary in the office of the Deputy President, confirmed that none of the five Local Service Orders (LSO) earlier reported missing were used to pay for the luxury jet trip.
He said the office had cancelled the LSOs after the Auditor General informed it that numbers 0855003 and 085505 were missing.
“We realised on May 19 that the LSOs were missing. I generated an internal memo alerting every officer of the loss and on July 29, we advertised to the general public that the documents were missing when our internal efforts to look for them failed,” he told the committee chaired by Budalang’i MP Ababu Namwamba.
It emerged during the hearing that none of the four companies prequalified to offer air services to the office of the deputy president had filed their annual returns since incorporation.
Registrar of companies Bernice Gachegu said the firms had only filed returns on incorporation.
EADC Limited, it emerged, had a contract agreement with Switzerland based firm VistaJet that provided the luxury plane that Ruto used to tour the countries.
The company was paid Sh18.5 million for the one-off trip.
“The companies are not in compliance. The practice among Kenyan companies is that when they want to do business they write to us to confirm the status of returns which is a requirement if they intend to borrow from banks. We also write to companies which have not filed the same to do so,” she told the committee.
Mr Mwasera defended the procurement of the jet through restricted tendering saying officials followed the government’s procurement rules.
“We had time constraints given that the president dispatched his deputy in accordance with Article 147 (1) and (2) to undertake travel from 16th to 19th of May 2013 to meet Heads of States of four African Nations and we had to plan the trip within a day,” he said in response to questions by Suna East MP Junet Mohamed.
On the cost of air travel by the former PM and VP, Mr Mwasera tabled a list of travel which did not have a comparative analysis of the region Mr Ruto toured.
No policy on aircraft hire
Mr Odinga spent Sh10.6 million for air tickets and accommodation to attend the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Sh5.8 million for the Istanbul Conference on Somalia in Turkey, Sh26.9 million on the Olympic games in the UK and Sh18.8 million for an official visit to Malaysia and Korea.
The former VP spent Sh57 million to tour America, China, Dubai and UK in June 2012, Sh20 million to travel to Cairo Egypt in January 2011, Sh10 million to tour South Africa and Uganda, and Sh4 million to tour Uganda.
“It should be noted that there is no government policy on hire of aircraft and therefore the general rule on procurement of goods, works and services as per section 73(2) of the Public Procurement and Disposal Act 2005 applies,” said Mr Mwasera.
