Wamatangi sues EACC, cites abuse of office after arrest

Kiambu Governor Kimani Wamatangi has sued the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), citing abuse of its investigation powers.

Wamatangi, in his case filed before the High Court on Tuesday, stated that although the EACC had obtained orders to investigate a tender for the supply, delivery, and installation of the Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) to Filtronic International Limited, it ended up arresting him, which was outside the court’s orders.

The governor claimed that he has been a victim of harassment and victimisation by EACC for the past year. He further argued that this was a guise of conducting investigations into corruption allegations.

Wamatangi sued EACC, the Director of Public Prosecution, and the Inspector General of Police, seeking to block either summons, arrests or being charged.

His lawyer Jotham Arwa argued that he was paraded to the public as though he had committed a crime.

“Even after the applicant had recorded a statement, the second respondent unreasonably and without any justifiable cause continued to detain him and only released him once his advocates threatened to pursue legal action over the outrageous abuse of power,” argued Arwa.

According to Dr Arwa, Wamatangi is not involved in any procurement processes. He stated that the commission failed to establish any links or involvement in procurement irregularities related to the ERP tender; instead, it shifted its focus to investigating him elsewhere.

"The second respondent thereafter asked the court to close the file that had been opened for purposes of their aforementioned investigations and has not pursued the matter elsewhere,” Arwa continued.

The lawyer said that EACC, then again, three months later, obtained orders to freeze orders of some five companies, this time round on the basis that it was investigating tenders awarded by Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA), Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA), and Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KURRA).

The lawyer said that EACC alleged that his client owned the companies.

According to Dr Arwa, moving to court was to sanitize its actions as it had a week before, alongside Financial Reporting Centre (FRC), written to Family Bank to restrict access to the bank accounts clandestinely.

"To demonstrate malice and baseless nature of the second respondent’s actions, having first rushed to court and obtained orders on account of existence of procurement irregularities, the second respondent has formally written to KeRRA, KURA, KeNHA, summoning their directors and seeking information about the impugned tenders, a belated request demonstrating that at the time of obtaining the orders to investigate the bank accounts, they had nothing to suggest the award of the tenders was illegal,” Wamatangi’s lawyer argued.

Wamatangi reads politics in all this. He said that there is an alleged push to have him resign from office. He did not mention who was behind it but claimed it was by ’nefarious political actors.’

He argued that it was unfair for the Commission to drop the investigations into the ERP after allegedly embarrassing him in public.

In his supporting affidavit, Wamatangi said that by the time he took office, the county’s revenue system was being managed by a private company called Strathmore Research and Consultancy Centre Limited.

He alleged that the firm had unfettered access and visibility of the system adding that there was a leakage of revenue.

He said that the county procured a new system, but none of the bidders raised queries. However, the governor stated that Strathmore sued Kiambu County, seeking Sh700 million.

The court heard that the case was struck out.

"It was thus clear that the said individuals who had unlawfully benefitted from the system at the expense of the county and the country at large, were hell bent on frustrating the county government and in doing so, target the petitioner herein for victimisation,” he said.

According to him, it was no coincidence that a few months after Strathmore sued, the EACC came calling.