ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi has been roped into the Ksh1.3 billion Anglo-Leasing corruption scandal by Transport Chief Administrative Secretary Chris Obure.
Appearing in court before Senior Principal Magistrate Anne Mwangi on Wednesday, December 1, 2021, Obure told the court that Mudavadi was involved in one of the Anglo-Leasing projects - procurement of equipment for the Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK).
In his defence testimony, the CAS alleged that the former Vice President wrote to him on May 9, 2002, seeking to direct the procurement equipment for the upgrading of postal services in the country.
File image of Transport CAS Chris Obure. |Photo| Courtesy|
“Mudavadi informed me in the letter that it was the government's intention to develop and upgrade the PCK," Obure said.
At the time, Mudavadi was the Vice President and Minister for Transport and Infrastructure while Obure was the Minister for Finance.
In this case, 18 high-value government security contracts were allegedly awarded to fictitious companies, leading to the loss of billions of shillings of public funds.
The government signed, on a single-sourcing basis, a contract with a US-based company, Spacenet Corporation, worth $11,787,000 (approximately Ksh1,301,284,800).
The contractor was to supply equipment and services to the PCK.
Obure told the court that Mudavadi sought his permission to directly procure the equipment from the US company which would interlink over 900 post offices in the country.
He revealed that the ANC leader informed him that upgrading the postal services would ease the payment of teachers, postal staff and other civil servants across the country.
The CAS told the court that he took the former Vice President for his word that the government was upgrading postal services.
Obure further told the court that Mudavadi sought his assistance in achieving the government's intention and that the project would last 10 years.
“The new technology once put in place would ease the transfer of payment for teachers and other government entities," Obure said.
He further revealed that upon receipt of the letter, he forwarded to the department of procurement within the Ministry of Finance.
"The director in my former ministry advised that Mudavadi should forward to them all the contract documents in relation to the project,” Obure told the court.
He added that he also sought advice from the then-Attorney General who told him that the contract was legally viable, upon which he signed it and committed the government to the project.
Obure was accused alongside former Transport and Communication Permanent Secretary Sammy Kyungu and former Finance Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Samwel Chamobo Bundotich.
Kyungu told the court he was authorised by Mudavadi to sign the contract documents on behalf of the ministry.
He denied any wrongdoing, saying he never abused the authority of his office in signing the contract for upgrading the postal services.
