MUSALIA MUDAVADI…..THE MOCKERY OF OUR TIMES
On the 21st of September 1961 the great land of Maragoli received what will turn out 52 years later to be the biggest liability in its history. It is on this day that Musalia Mudavadi was born.His father the late Moses Mudamba Mudavadi was areknowned politician popular for his wits and hard ball politics.Upon his demise in 1989,his son Musalia Mudavadi was elected Sabatia Mp. Moi had a good relationship with Musalia's father who was largely seen as responsible for delivering the Luhya support for the Moi dictatorship. To maintain this support after the death of the senior Mudavadi, Moi appointed Musalia Minister of Supplies and Marketing. After returning to Parliament in 1992, Musalia was once again appointed a Minister, this time taking over the Ministry of Finance in January 1993, a post he led until the 1997 December elections. After this election, Musalia was appointed Minister of Agriculture in 1998, a time when he also served as Leader of Government Business in Kenya's Parliament. He then moved to occupy the Ministry for Information, Transport and Communication in 1999 topping his political career as Vice President of Kenya and Minister for Transport and Communication in the run up to the December 2002 elections. The younger Mudavadi was bribed with the post of VP two months before the December 2002 elections and after KANU lost power, he went down in history as the Kenyan VP who sat in office for the shortest time ever. It is believed that this bribe prevented Mudavadi from crossing over to the Rainbow coalition, which later formed the government after defeating KANU.
INTEGRITY QUESTIONS
During his tenure, documentation exists linking Mr. Mudavadi to a chain of corruption scandals that puts to question his credibility as a honest leader who could help change Kenya.
On June 19 2002, Mudavadi wrote a project justification letter to the then Minister of Finance Mr. Chris Obure seeking exemption of the Postal Corporation of Kenya from the Audit and Exchequer Public Procurement Regulations of 2001 that was specifically set up to check corruption when it came to public procurements by government agencies.
In the same letter, Mudavadi went further and sought permission for the Posta Corporation to enter into direct procurement of goods and services from Universal Satspace (an American company), Spacenet Incorporated and First Mercantile Securities Corporation (both of Switzerland). The curious point is that according to the April 2006 Report from the Controller and Auditor General, the Companies in whose favour Mudavadi had written in his capacity as a Cabinet Minister did not exist. The Companies wanted to install broadband Network and VSAT equipment in 980 post offices across the country in a project baptized "Posta Surf " at a tune of Ksh2.8 billion.
The gist of Mudavadi's intervention is that he wanted the companies awarded the contracts without any tendering as stipulated in law. In an Affidavit dated March 27, 2006, and signed by Julius Shigolia, the Secretary of the Postal Corporation of Kenya, Mudavadi's letter "was totally unfounded, misleading and evidence of a conspiracy to defraud the Republic of Kenya."303 Mudavadi wanted the contracts awarded to Satspace, which was not registered in Kenya and despite the fact that the same job could be done by Telkom Kenya. In his Affidavit, Shigolia claimed that a company called Gilat Alldean (Africa) had fraudulently claimed that it is the parent company of Spacenet, an American company, in order to give foreign companies a legal basis of participating in contracts in Kenya.
On the basis of this well documented evidence,it is a mockery of our new dispensation for the son of Hannah to attempt to portray himself as asafe bet.Indeed he can definitively be billed as a safe bet for the very cartels that have over the years looted from public coffers.Throughout his tenure as a minister,there are no notable projects that can be cridet to his name.Indeed his move to join the Jubilee alliance was a calling from hell to join the retrogressive forces that have continuously impaired our vision for the future with dark shades.
WAS MUDAVADI GENUINE IN QUITTING
Early this year,Mudavadi announced his desire to challenge for the berth of Presidential candidate in ODM. Democratic as ODM is, Mudavadi was given a free hand to seek the support of party delegates without interference. In his campaigns, he continuously mooted and advocated for the idea of holding presidential nominations in the spirit of devolution. He opined that it was a more effective and democratic method of picking a party flag bearer because delegates will be spared the hustle of travelling to the city and be short changed.
ODM National Executive Committee considered his view and graciously granted it in line with its devolution ideology.However,it was all clear that Musalia was merely conjuring excuses to exit the party.Despite all his demands being met,he eventually quit ODM,aparty that resurrected his dead political career after a humiliating defeat in the historic 2002 elections to none other than a pastor and a political novice for that matter.
In his usual turn coat style,after joining hands with his partners in crime,barerly 7 months since he quit ODM,Musalia is now advocating for consensus as a method to pick the Jubilee alliance flag bearer.He is strongly opposed to delegates electing a presidential candidate.
It is indeed suprising that Musalia has now lost interest in devolution that he so much claimed to champion.If anything we would be expecting him to persuade his compatriots to have the presidential nominations held at the county level.So what has changed?Is Musalia a man to be trusted as a president? It is intriguing that he now expects democracy to flourish in a coalition where member parties have not conducted grassroots elections except URP.
Even most ironical is the fact that Musalia does not even have no UDF delegates because they do not exist.As I have stated before,Musalia has just confirmed to us that in the history of Kenya,there was only one Mudavadi,the late MOSES MUDAMBA MUDAVADI(R.I.P). As for the son of Hannah…we wish you a safe journey as you head to political oblivion.
