ARUSHA, TANZANIA- EALA, EAC HQ. The East African Legislative Assembly’s committee on Legal, Rules and Privileges has been urged to investigate the immediate former Secretary General of the East African Community, Hon. Dr. Peter Muthuki for corruption and abuse of office during his tenure. The Committee sat in Arusha to consider documents that were presented to the Assembly by Hon. Kennedy Mukulia on corruption allegations against the office of the former Secretary General of EAC during the 3rd Meeting, 2nd Session of the 5th Assembly in March, 2024 in Nairobi, Kenya.
During the 3rd Meeting of the 2nd Session of the 5th Assembly in Nairobi, Hon. Mukulia laid on the floor of the House, documents containing damning allegations of gross corruption and abuse of office against the office of the Secretary General. The Speaker of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Joseph Ntakuritimana referred the documents to the committee on Legal, Rules and Privileges, a committee charged with the responsibility of investigating non-compliance with the provisions of the Treaty.
Yesterday, in his submission to the committee on Legal Rules and Privileges, Hon. Mukulia emphasized the principles of good governance, accountability, and adherence to the rule of law, as stipulated in the EAC Treaty. “The documents laid on the table demonstrate impunity, gross abuse of office, disregard for the Treaty and other Community Legal Instruments, indicating grand corporate irresponsibility and mismanagement of the affairs of the Community by an individual, the immediate former Secretary General, who is by law, the accounting officer of the Community”.
The documents further revealed that the former Secretary General “could not have become a law unto himself unless he was assisted by some staff, persons who were employed by the council to safeguard the interest of the community, but they became willing collaborators of
the Secretary General in disregarding the established financial rules and regulations and ensured wanton expenditure of community resources. Those who stood on their way, were either intimidated, redeployed and reassigned different duties or banned from travelling. The Council to the Community became a prominent spectator, leaving the community in the hands of one man”. Reads part of the document. Hon. Mukulia tabled the following allegations to the Committee of Legal, Rules and Privileges for consideration and investigation.
1. On the EAC Peace Fund Facility Fund
The documents laid before the committee showed that the Directorate of Finance whose primary duty is to ensure that the expenditure complies with the Financial Rules and Regulations, was spending funds whose utilization was never disclosed to the Assembly as required by the Treaty and Financial Rules and Regulations since 2022. This means that, the Accounting Officer, the Director of Finance, the Principal Accountant and the Senior Budget Officer, “conspired to create
and operate a separate and parallel budget process that is not within Article 132 and Part V of the Financial Rules and Regulations (on utilization of financial resources)”.
According to Hon. Mukulia, the Audit Commission and the Internal Audit Unit in their report found that all the expenditure under the Peace Facility was irregular. Hon. Mukulia asked the Committee to establish the alleged accountants/funds that have been opened/closed and utilized by the former Secretary General without approval of the Council and the Assembly and the officers responsible for this impunity.
2. Fabricated Travel Expense
Hon. Mukulia also laid the documents alleging that the Directorate of Finance is in the habit of inventing travels to receive Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA). For instance, documents shows that the Director of Finance approved travel for the Principal Accountant, Senior Budget Officer and Senior Accountant to attend a “fictious budget session of EALA in March 2024 in Nairobi”, while he was in Nairobi for the same activity, when clearly the session in Nairobi at that time was
not a budget session. Hon. Mukulia urged the Committee to establish the number of budget sessions the Directorate of Finance has “invented” during the tenure and put to an end to this misuse of community resources.
3. Irregular imprest
The documents also showed an irregular imprest. Hon. Mukulia argues that, whereas regulation 40 of the Financial Rules and Regulations provides that an officer may be given imprest in respect of any expense that an officer may incur in the course of official travel, this regulation has been abused by the directorate of finance and the office of the Secretary General. That the Assembly has never authorized and allocate imprest to the Secretary General of between USD5000 to USD20,000 every time he travelled, since there is no budget line for imprest. This means that, they have been irregularly allocating funds from approved activities in order to fund the travels of the former Secretary General. He urged the committee to “establish from which budget line the imprest has been drawn since 2021/2022, and to establish how the activities in the approved budget have been affected and which officer has been signing or receiving the imprest on behalf of the former Secretary General”.
4. Irregular Recruitment of staff
The documents presented before the committee also revealed allegations of abuse and mismanagement in the recruitment process. The Treaty and the staff Rules and Regulations provides procedure on recruitment and with the participation of the Human Resource Advisory Committee, The Directorate of Human Resource or even the Council of Ministers. The documents reveals that, “The persons recruited between 2021 and 8th March, 2024 in Nyerere Centre for Peace and Research(Administrator-Everlyn Odoro), The USAID Liason Officer (Brian Kalekye), Communications (Lilian Wanjiru Kiarie), Projects (Project Assistant-Office of the Secretary General (Silvester Kilungya)”, shows a clear abuse of authority of the former immediate former Secretary General, impunity and utter disregard for the staff Rules and Regulations and Principles of recruitment by irregularly recruiting relatives, friends and girlfriends into the service of the community.
In his submission, Hon. Mukulia argued that, the staff Rules and Regulations provide for advertising, constituting of Panels for shortlisting, shortlisting and interviewing and appointment and that the above-mentioned positions and individuals were not advertised, there is no recruitment report. He requested the Committee to establish how those individuals were identified to fill these positions, and how these positions were negotiated, and included in the EAC projects.
The documents also raised the issue of creation of separate payrolls to accommodate payments for individuals who are irregularly recruited and approval for these individuals to receive staff entitlements including settlement allowances, and payment of arrears fabricated by officers within the secretariate. Hon. Mukulia urged the committee to investigate and establish the officers who created additional patrol structures and on whose authority. The Committee needs to establish those who collaborated in this impunity.
5. Additional Security (close Protection)
The documents presented to the Committee also revealed that, whereas the Treaty establishes that the Secretary General should contact Partner State Agencies through the Ministries of EAC Affairs, in 2021, The Secretary General requested for direct close protection security and a driver from The Kenya National Police (Lewis Mutuku) and The Arusha Regional Police without the concurrence of the Ministries responsible for EAC affairs. According to the Hon. Mukulia, The
identification and engagement of security personnel from Partner States directly from the National Police Forces without any assessment of risk or cost implication leads to the claims of unpaid allowances by the security officers and additional driver.
6. Redeployment of Staff and assigning functions of staff to consultants
Hon. Mukulia also tabled documents before the committee showing that whenever the immediate former Secretary General faced resistance of his regular policies or intentions, the staff who resist or reject the policies were either redeployed, or had their functions assigned to others who would collaborate. In some instances, a private communication firm whose ownership is close to the former Secretary General was hired to take over the functions of EAC Communications Department without the Approval of the Council.
In his concluding presentation, Hon. Mukulia reiterated that the allegations tabled were only symptoms of abuse of office, impunity, and disregard for established procedures and mismanagement of community resources. He urged the Committee not to restrict itself to the symptoms, but should establish the officers whose deliberate efforts, or negligence facilitated these abuses to establish themselves in the community.
After this submission by Hon. Mukulia, The Legal, Rules and Privileges Committee of EALA will consider the evidence and will investigate the allegations made and tabled against the immediate former Secretary General of EAC, Hon.Dr. Peter Muthuki and his office. The Committee is expected to submit its findings and recommendations to the East African Assembly once the investigations are concluded.
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For more, Contact:
Nicodemus Ajak Bior
Senior Public Relations Officer (SPRO)
East Africa Legislative Assembly
Arusha, Tanzania
Tel: +255-768-885-633/, +254729157207(WhatsApp)
Email: nbior@eachq.org
Web: www.eala.org
