The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has revealed how the Kenya Kwanza Alliance presidential running mate Rigathi Gachagua laundered taxpayers' money as it welcomed the High Court ruling that directed him to give up his Sh200 million to the state.
According to the court, Gachagua acquired the money fraudulently from government agencies through unscrupulous deals.
He failed to prove to the court how he got the money, which was wired from various government agencies into his Rafiki Microfinance account.
Detectives from the DCI’s Serious Crimes Unit unearthed details of how the Mathira MP used unique entities to secure government tenders fraudulently.
Using proxies who had registered over 20 companies, Rigathi obtained over Sh1.7 Billion from close to 10 government ministries, state departments, parastatals and county governments paid through Rafiki Microfinance.
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The MP and two of his trusted female associates approached youth and women to register companies and open accounts at Rafiki Microfinance, then used his influence and blackmail to secure tenders for the companies.
However, one of Gachagua’s trusted confidants and personal assistant Julianne Jahenda, was made a signatory in all the accounts opened by the suppliers at the microfinance.
In a well-orchestrated and executed plan, the youths were then given loans by the micro-finance and assisted to supply the required goods, most of which were substandard and broke down immediately after being delivered, leading to losses of hundreds of millions of taxpayers money.
Hospitals were the most targeted by the crooked thugs who took advantage of efforts by County Governments to equip their health facilities and offer specialised health services to the public.
In one such deal in 2014, a county-based in central Kenya received medical equipment worth Sh27.4 million shillings for the supply of dialysis machines and a water treatment plant. The tender for the supply of the equipment was awarded to 13 companies all allied to Gachagua.
However, the payment was made in a single voucher through Rafiki Microfinance and then transferred to Gachagua’s personal accounts.
This is despite the fact that one of the dialysis machines and the water treatment plant supplied were not functional, prompting the national government through Managed Equipment Scheme (MES) to come through by supplying eight dialysis machines and a water treatment plant that are currently in use at the hospital.
At the South Coast, a hospital received an incinerator worth Sh12.7 million shillings supplied by one of Gachagua’s associates in 2014.
The incinerator has never been put to use since it was faulty junk, yet the county government had paid Sh10 million for it.
During the same year, a county in Western Kenya also traded with the crooked Member of Parliament through proxies, for the supply of medical equipment to a tune of Sh123.1 million.
Shockingly, after the tenders were paid to the proxies’ accounts at Rafiki Microfinance, Jahenda would immediately transfer the money to other accounts belonging to Gachagua, who would then deposit the monies in other different accounts to avoid detection by the DCI detectives.
Sometimes, the poor youths would be compelled to sign blank cheques that would later be cashed and the money deposited into Gachagua’s personal accounts.
The detectives also established that there were funds going into Gachagua’s accounts from loans and inter-company transfers, indicating that he was the ultimate beneficiary of the funds received from the counties.
The poor suppliers were then left paying for the loans that they acquired at the microfinance and supplied junks to county hospitals. It is through the painstaking investigations by sleuths from the Serious Crimes Unit that this high-level fraud was detected, leading to the freezing of Sh201,911,371.28 belonging to the MP by the Assets Recovery Agency.
Additionally, the detectives whom the MP recently alleged couldn’t do simple arithmetics, discovered that Jahenda, who operated an MPESA shop in the city’s Eastlands suburbs prior to being recruited as Gachagua’s Personal Assistant and another female associate, had received over Sh254 Million which they could not account for.
