William Ruto has been caught up in the quagmire of explaining what exact programs his UDA outfit will offer to Kenyans in the name of his “Bottoms Up Model”.
It has been tough for him to come with any specifics other than repeating the same slogan every day in his Karen Palace delegate meetings of politicians literally crawling at his feet for this new great opportunity coming their way.
On October 25, 2021 Ruto finally came up with a specific plan when he announced that his government will offer Kshs. 1 million to Sex Workers to start something up.
Kenyans with our sexism are going to scoff at this and use some terrible words to describe it but that is completely irrelevant.
The bigger issue in that announcement is how many safe sex groups will Ruto offer the Kshs. 1 million to.
And god forbid do they have to prove that they are in that profession. Hopefully not.
Read: Dr. Miguna’s Right to go to Kenya is back on the Front pages: Thanks to ex-CJ Dr. Willy Mutunga
So how many groups can apply for this money.
Can men who are sex workers also form groups and apply for Ruto’s money. Hopefully yes. Kazi ni Kazi, ama?
Anne Waiguru’s rise and rise in power started with her defining role as the Cabinet Secretary signed the job of youth empowerment when she was appointed as the person to transform the National Youth Services into a modern vehicle to empower our youth.
The NYS Jubilee program handed to Waiguru was to achieve this youth empowerment plan through massive recruitment of the youth into NYS to get technical job training and providing social services to Kenyans which would lead them to getting gainful full employment and enable them to achieve economic development and personal prosperity.
Sound familiar? Yes indeed. That is the original “Bottoms Up Model” started by Jubilee right off the bat in 2013.
Waiguru made her mark as the one to engineer a project to move our youth into achieving their ambitions as young people.
Instead of the promised success, this youth empowerment plan though the NYS became a cash cow for thieves who just grabbed all the money from the taxpayers allocated to the youth and Anne Waiguru was exposed as part of the massive thievery that ended up grabbing more than Kshs. 10 billion and providing absolutely nothing to the youth.
That is how youth empowerment has worked for Kenyan youth under the leadership of President Uhuru, DP William Ruto and our new youth saviour Anne Waiguru. Just grand it has been not for the youth but the thieves.
For now Waiguru is bent on taking those unique skills of how to rob Kenyans by claiming you are doing something for the youth to Ruto and UDA whose bench mark is youth empowerment.
This is the beginning of the mess that completely destroyed the much revered Kenya National Youth Service in Kenya.
In the story above there are claims in court that Anne Waiguru hired her own personal thieves (point men) to oversee the looting at the NYS.
Under the laws of Kenya at that time and even now, oversight powers were given to Cabinet Secretaries and according to the NYS staff who appeared in this hearing, Waiguru used and abused those powers to appoint supervisors of the NYS money amounting to Kshs. 791 million in this particular case.
Of serious note in this court case was the evidence provided that procurement issues in government ministries were previously monitored by principal secretaries in those ministries but Jubilee administration transferred the role of supervising procurements to the Cabinet Secretaries and that was the ticket cabinet secretaries like Anne Waiguru jumped on to fleece our country dry.
By the way this was before the now infamous handshake in the William Ruto world so this is on the hands of our Jubilee liberators at the time.
But of those cases against Anne Waiguru for looting at the NYS, this particular ruling by Justice Mumbi Ngugi convicting key Waiguru operatives in NYS was the most damning and relevant even today as Waiguru seeks a new life with Ruto’s UDA.
So those are the facts and indeed Waiguru must be heavily welcomed to UDA by Mheshimiwa Ruto who lets her know that there may be some mountains to climb just to start the journey. Forget Mount Kenya for now we have some real mountains Ruto says. Wonderful. Waiguru replies.
Read: Ngirici to Waiguru: Stop blaming UDA defection for your graft cases
In that ruling by justice Mumbi Ngugi a former finance director of NYS under Waiguru, Sam Mwadime was forced to forfeit properties worth millions obtained through the use of stolen money from the NYS.
These rulings were based on evidence provided by the Kenyan Asset Recovery Authority (ARA) which took the case against the then-Secretary of NYS and later took the matter court.
These Anne Waiguru “point men and women” just grabbed everything they could get. I know the kids in a candy shop story but for the love of god I would to personally arrest my kid if they went on this spree.
But those are my kids and I can handle it. But with this NYS mass theft of public funds under Anne Waiguru you are not dealing with kids in a candy store. You are dealing with professional robbers under their queen.
That is a different set of circumstances and nightmares. We are living it now. Question is for much more longer do we have to crown thieves and outright robbers as our national leaders.
Kenyans will answer that question in August 2022.
Personally, I always have faith in my fellow Kenyans.
We may agree or not but that is usually irrelevant in the big picture of things for our country.
But something has to be done about this thievery of our national tax money even for the alleged name of youth empowerment by the same people who screwed it up the first time and now want to fix it again.
Miraculously.
We have heard this before. Thank you very much.
Adongo Ogony is a Human Rights Activist and a Writer who lives in Toronto, Canada
