Margaret Wanja Muthui, the controversial Kenya Rural Roads Agency Procurement officer whose assets were frozen has linked the finance office in the multimillion scandal. Last month, Assets Recovery Agency obtained orders from the High Court freezing her assets and those of her associates. It is said no way could she have acted alone with outsiders to get multi-million payments without involvement of the Finance director Dan Manyasi.
ARA orders of freezing assets has now opened criminal charges against Muthui associates namely Esther Wagio Njunge, an employee at Safaricom PLC, Alice Wacuka Njunge, brotherin-law Joseph Njunge Mathu and sister Joyce Wanjiku Njunge. Those well-versed with the syndicate reveal, after Muthui brokered for the Chinese firms to win lucrative road tenders by virtue of her powerful position in the procurement, the next stage was to involve Manyasi and his cartel in finance department to coordinate multimillions payments. Manyasi was linked to the controversial payments of a road project in Machakos county.
The Sh1.2 billion project was for the construction of Ekalakala-Matuu road. The road stalled despite the fact payments had been made. Engineer Esther Mwangi of KeRRA and contractors Zebedeo Opore, Simon Kaingo and Richard Ombati were arrested. The 40km road branches off Garissa-Thika road and cuts across Yatta and Masinga constituencies.
The project linked to Manyasi’s dirty deals payment was upgrading to bitumen standard and maintenance of MatuuEkalakala-Kakuku and Junction A3 KatuluniJunction C439. The main contractor Kitho Civil and Engineering Company Limited in suspicious circumstances requested to subcontract some sections of the works to Zediay Investment Limited and Tekwara Services Limited. Sources at KeRRA want authorities to dig deep in the said project that if well investigated will unearth a lot.
The question being, who approved Kitho to be paid, abandon the project and engage two subcontractors? The project, according to confidential documents, was started on July 21 2017 during the campaign
period. It was abandoned after Kitho was paid Sh100 million in advance by the state. An insider reveals, it was one of the many projects undertaken by KeRRA during the election period to loot millions of shillings. Projects are undertaken during the election time due to the fact Kenyans are busy with politics and no one has interest in overseeing what is happening on ground. The proceeds from the lucrative road tenders are laundered through proxies who invest one behalf of corrupt cartels.
In Wanja’s case, at a salary of Sh400,000 while acting director procurement at KeRRA, she had purchased two unit apartments in Kileleshwa valued at Sh300 million paid in cash. The apartments are C2, C3 and C16 at Signature residence. She had high end vehicles and a mixed-used commercial building in Githurai and Ruiru in Kiambu. What surprises many is how Manyasi was named finance director even after his name featured prominently in a criminal case involving a former finance director.
Sources say, investigations should profile properties owned by top faces not only in procurement but also in finance department. The disgraced Muthui has been isolated by KeRRA managers and Chinese construction firms as she awaits criminal charges. With her asset frozen and bank accounts, she is likely to go the NYS multimillions Ngirita family way. Muthui has of late lost weight and talks to herself. For Manyasi, he is the next on the line with his properties and those of his allies in Nairobi, Kakamega and Uasin Gishu being profiled. Manyasi operates a dollar account with a local bank that contractors banked money in.
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