Cord co-principal Raila Odinga with granddaughter Senayi Akowi at his
Karen home on August 1, 2015. Mr Odinga said the visiting US president
would not have lauded the Jubilee administration’s efforts had he stayed
longer to hear of the loss of billions of shillings in government
reported by Auditor-General Edward Ouko. PHOTO | WILLIAM OERI | NATION
MEDIA GROUP
American President Barack Obama may not have received a proper
briefing on the state of corruption in Kenya ahead of his trip,
opposition chief Raila Odinga has said.
In an interview with the Sunday Nation,
Mr Odinga said the visiting US president would not have lauded the
Jubilee administration’s efforts had he stayed longer to hear of the
loss of billions of shillings in government reported by Auditor-General
Edward Ouko.
“I fault him (Mr Obama) on that.
There is a stark contrast of the picture that came out and the reality,” Mr Odinga said.
The
Cord leader, however, said the country stood to reap big from the visit
which saw global business magnates converge in Nairobi, some scouting
for innovative entrepreneurs they can support.
POSITIVE PUBLICITY
“His visit has given Kenya positive publicity on the global stage.
"Our
hope is that this will help revive our shattered tourism industry and
give the youth and women more economic opportunities,” he said.
He also wished the visit came earlier in Mr Obama’s presidency to oversee the implementation of the promises he gave Kenyans.
“One would have liked it (the trip) done earlier because that way, the country would have benefited more.
"He would have had four years to follow-up on what he committed to do,” he said.
In
a joint media address a State House on July 25, Mr Obama commended Mr
Kenyatta for his bold step that included suspending members of his
Cabinet.
He urged him to take the war to senior officials.
Five
Cabinet Secretaries Charity Ngilu (Lands), Davies Chirchir (Energy),
Kazungu Kambi (Labour), Felix Koskei (Agriculture) and Michael Kamau
(Transport) are suspended after facing allegations of corruption.
The
former Prime Minister, who spoke at his Karen home, faulted President
Kenyatta and the Jubilee administration for using the visit to make up
for its “legitimacy deficit”.
“To them, the US was a
waning power when they took over power and this informed their
East-leaning foreign policy until President Obama decided to come.
"The
irrational behaviour you are seeing now is a clear testament of a
regime that was drowning, even willing to clutch at a straw.”
Mr
Odinga also downplayed celebrations in Jubilee circles touched off by
Mr Obama’s remarks that a certain opposition leader had, in a private
session on Sunday, asked him to help press the government on a number of
issues.
He said much as the sentiments were made in
jest, Jubilee was unfairly milking it yet President Obama did not mean
to castigate the opposition. Jubilee supporters are treating the remark
as an American stamp of approval for the government.
The
general feeling within the opposition is that President Obama chose to
be a bit generous with the Jubilee administration in a number of aspects
like its anti-corruption push as well as what has been christened
“tongue-lashing the opposition” within Jubilee quarters.
AUDITOR'S REPORT
Mr
Odinga accuses President Kenyatta of employing a half-hearted approach
in the war on graft citing Dr Ouko’s reports that indicate the
government could not account for about Sh67 billion spent in the last
fiscal year.
He also pointed to allegations that
millions of shillings could have been lost at the National Youth Service
under Devolution and National Planning Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru’s
watch as some of the cases that dent Mr Kenyatta’s scorecard on
corruption.
Overall, Mr Odinga said the US leader was
on the mark in all his speeches, helping reinforce what they have been
saying for the last two years.
“President Obama echoed the same gospel, that of the need to stop politics of ethnicity we have been preaching all along.
"From
the need to strengthen devolution, promote transparency in government
to paying more attention to marginalised groups and with a better
platform than ours, we articulated them so well,” he said.
Their
only hope, he said, was that Jubilee would take him seriously. The
opposition chief said Mr Obama needed no lecture on what ails the
country.
The fact that he met the opposition after
having bilateral talks with Mr Kenyatta was also god-send, he said,
arguing that the striking similarities between the memorandum they
presented to Mr Obama and the focus of most of his speeches would have
drawn protests from the government that they remotely influenced the
terms of engagement.
“In any case, that (first meeting with the opposition) never happens anywhere in the world.
The practice is to have the visiting head of state meet his host before he can host any other parties,” he added.
Also, he explained that the reduction in the time they met Mr Obama had been informed by the same fact.
“We
were supposed to meet him for 45 minutes but because we had prepared a
memorandum on issues we wanted to discuss, it turned out that he had
tackled most of them so I just took him through a summary of the
document thereby saving on time.”
The fact that Mr
Obama met Mr Odinga, his co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka and Moses
Wetang’ula together with Narc-Kenya leader Martha Karua for slightly
less than 30 minutes had raised eyebrows with some asking if he was
doing so just as a formality.
Mr Obama signed a number
of agreements with Government of Kenya “to sustain its commitment to
conduct thorough investigations into corruption cases and, where
investigations adduce sufficient evidence, to professionally prosecute
such corruption cases, including cases recommended by the Ethics and
Anti-Corruption Commission” during the historic three-day trip.
GOVERNMENT'S IMAGE
Prior
to his coming, Jubilee politicians had accused the opposition of
seeking to tarnish the government’s image in the hope that it would get a
dressing down from Mr Obama.
On the push by the
opposition to have the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission
(IEBC) reformed before the next General Election, Mr Odinga expressed
hope that the US government would help set up a new electoral
infrastructure as well as train the staff on how to use it.
Mr
Odinga, who is also the ODM leader, revealed that the Cord leadership
had given the committee driving Okoa Kenya referendum campaign up to
September 15 to forward signatures to the IEBC to start the process.
“We are in the final stages. Clerks are keying in the data before it is presented to the IEBC.
They are working in two shifts of 40 each, day and night to meet the deadline,” he stated.
His update on the referendum helps calm anxiety among Cord supporters.
