{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Read this carefully! NGWALA: Stop this attack on Waiguru - Opinion | Daily Nation

http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Stop-this-attack-on-Waiguru/-/440808/2949532/-/kfqlaez/-/index.html

NGWALA: Stop this attack on Waiguru - Opinion

What was all that media frenzy surrounding Devolution and Planning Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti's appearance before the Public Accounts Committee last week?

The fact was lost that all those condom dispensers, overpriced pens, and touch screen TV amounted to no more than Sh10 million.

When the newspapers reported that the Auditor-General and his team of bean counters could not tell whether payments of Sh3.8 billion at the Interior and Coordination of Government Ministry had been made illicitly, there were no banner headlines, no vilification of Minister Joseph Nkaissery, no abusive hashtags.

The Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr Justin Muturi, recently blew the whistle on a procurement scam in the House that replicated what had happened at the National Youth Service and in which Sh150 million had been siphoned.

The reception was very different even when the following week the figure snowballed to Sh500 million.

Have we seen the likes of Alfred Keter, complete with credibility issues, peddling papers for signatures to impeach the Treasury Cabinet secretary, Mr Henry Rotich, over the so-called Eurobond billions "mystery"?

What am I saying here? Despite serious allegations of corruption in their dockets, there is not a word against Mr Nkaissery and Mr Muturi.

One thing is becoming increasingly clear.

The war on Ms Anne Waiguru, the vitriol and vilification, are not in fact about her: They are all about President Uhuru Kenyatta.

The CS is only a pawn. This raises the big question: Who are the players?

It is those inside Jubilee who are the beneficiaries of the NYS Sh791 million scam.

They have handed political chess grandmaster Raila Odinga the strategy to dismantle the Jubilee administration.

However, they will be consumed by their own fecklessness.

As for PS Mangiti, how do you explain the top mandarin in Kenya's biggest ministry carrying documents to the PAC that seek to vilify his own CS, only to turn around to withdraw them after the damage is done, claiming that they were erroneously placed before MPs?

This Keystone Kops behaviour was anything but funny. It lends credence to Ms Waiguru's suspicions about a conspiracy against her.

Before a principal secretary appears before a committee of Parliament, the documents he or she tables there will have been prepared well in advance and thoroughly reviewed.

Parliamentary reporting has never been so remiss as in Ms Waiguru's case.

One cannot tell from the media reports that the PAC summoned her to appear before it on only one issue — the Sh1.7 million touch screen TV allegedly sitting in her office.

This turned out to be a complete non-issue and a barefaced and ignorant lie. Something sinister is afoot around Ms Waiguru.

This gender-based discrimination that has resulted in this unthinking baying for the CS's blood and the media being sucked into the circus without conducting any independent research has exposed us as a biased lot.

The media must wake up before it is too late and double-check everything they hear about Ms Waiguru, or indeed any other Kenyan newsmaker, especially women.

NGWALA: Stop this attack on Waiguru - Opinion | Daily Nation

http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Stop-this-attack-on-Waiguru/-/440808/2949532/-/kfqlaez/-/index.html

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