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| NEWS > 03 March 2007 |
Other related articles:
New charges in fake-drug case
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By THOMAS KOROSEC
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
DALLAS - Four years after the so-called fake-drug scandal broke, prosecutors in Dallas have new evidence that police corruption was at the heart of the scheme that sent 30 Mexican immigrants to jail on false cocaine and methamphetamine charges.
A former narcotics officer recently began cooperating with authorities and, according to the lead prosecutor on the case, has provided information against his former partner, Mar... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Standard - Nairobi,Kenya
03 March 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Sacked for blowing the whistle
Lifting a sculpture of a man blowing a whistle, Elias Njagi Kavanda smiles knowing it’s a symbol of recognition for his fight against corruption.
The simple sculpture that is symbolic of his fight against the vice temporarily restores his dignity lost after being sacked from the Kenya Railways Corporation, a Government owned body, for exposing graft.
Ironically, the Kenya National Commission on Human Right (KNCHR), a government watchdog, honoured him.
After serving the Government for many years and trying to shield it from corruption, Kavanda suffered the indignity of a dishonourable dismissal and the humiliation of seeing his family being thrown out of the Government house they were living in.
Ironically, this came in 2003 at the height of the Narc administration, a Government that was voted into power on an anti-corruption platform.
Not even the most ardent anti-corruption crusader in the Government at the time, Mr John Githongo, could help him.
Living like a pauper
Indeed, some Government officials at the Office of the President to whom he had reported corrupt deals at the corporation leaked this information to his bosses leading to his dismissal.
The father of eight refused to become a millionaire like some of his bosses whom he exposed in the corruption scandals at the Kenya Railways Corporation. Sadly, from a senior official with a Government corporation, the 48-year-old confesses he is now a pauper and lives like a beggar.
He has been unable to educate his family and it sometimes becomes a problem feeding it.
"My children go to school only because some of my relatives and friends pay for their fees. They are bright but I am unable to give them the education they deserve," he says a little embarrassed to admit this.
"I never got my salary for six months before I was sacked. My bosses had even instructed the police to arrest me but they declined saying I had committed no offence," he explains, his mood somewhat pensive. My family now lives on the mercies of friends and relatives. I have nothing in my house," he says shaking his head in anger.
Laughing off his troubles, Kavanda says he does not regret what he did even with all the problems it had caused him.
"My family now lives a miserable life but what can I do?" he asks rhetorically. "But I thank God my children are miraculously still in school. I even don’t know how they survive."
His only prayer is that the Government he served diligently and honestly would consider reinstating him back to his former job or even posting him elsewhere. He also wants the Government to pay him his benefits so that he is able to sustain his family. Kavanda’s tribulations began immediately he got a job with Kenya Railways in 2002 as a senior security officer in charge of the central Kenya region.
The former inspector of police resigned from his former job at the police headquarters in Vigilance House in 1996 for a lucrative job with the United Nation’s security department.
Slightly over a year later, Kavanda would leave the job and in 2002 he landed another job with Kenya Railways Corporation as a senior Security Officer in charge of the central Kenya region. He also happened to be number two in the security department.
Facing the beast
It is while working at Kenya Railways that he came face to face with real corruption in the corporation.
"I would stumble on some corrupt practices within the organisation that went unquestioned," remembers the former police officer.
"I gathered a lot of information on corruption in Kenya Railways and passed it on to my bosses. The problem started here because they did not want me to expose the deals," he recalls.
Kavanda remembers how his bosses would get shocked that he had discovered some of the corporations best kept secrets after reading his reports.
Initially, he admits, he believed that he had the support of the corporation’s managers whom he thought were keen to revive the corporation that used to be the pride of the Government.
Though he was the second in command at the security department, Kavanda was transferred to a minor station at the Coast when he stumbled on a racket to smuggle new spare parts, which were sold disguised as scrap metals.
"I was transferred to Mombasa after I discovered a racket at the railways’ central stores where spare parts were being sold disguised as scrap metals and they would again be sold back to the corporation at an exorbitant price," he says shaking his head in bitterness. "They didn’t want me to get to the bottom of the matter."
Malicious transfer
He says some new rails and wagon wheels would be sold and taken to a firm in Athi River where they would be smelted.
Convinced that he would make a difference at the Coast where he was posted, Kavanda humbly accepted the transfer though he viewed it as a demotion. "Kenya Railways was making a lot of money. If it was well managed to eliminate the corruption and theft, it could be making a lot of profits," he laments.
At the Coast, Kavanda was shocked to discover the collusion between the corporation’s top management and police officers to swindle the public firm millions of shillings through theft.
"Hundreds of bags of sugar would be mysteriously stolen from wagons parked at the Mombasa police security line daily yet this was expected to be the safest place," he says.
Kavanda would carry out his investigations and file reports to his superiors every time believing they would be happy with him for saving the corporation millions.
Good reports no action
However, he would be shocked every time the report was received since it threatened the livelihood of some of the bosses.
In one of his investigation report he found out that between February and July 2002, over 1,500 bags of sugar had been stolen within the police lines. "This theft was a very big syndicate, which was carried by senior officers within the corporation," said Kavanda in his report.
He said the same senior officers would then authorise the corporation to pay the sugar miller for the stolen commodity without any investigations.
A bitter Kavanda discloses that he got no financial support to carry out an elaborate investigation on the scam. A request to his bosses to give him funds to be able to sustain an informer whose life was under threat until he testified was turned down thereby crippling an otherwise strong case.
Before things could cool after exposing his bosses for abetting theft and corruption, Kavanda stumbled on yet another scam that also touched on his bosses.
The corporation, he found out, was losing thousands of shillings in revenue through movement of empty containers from Malaba to Kilindini.
He said individuals pocket all the money that was paid for ferrying empty containers to Kilindini thereby denying the corporation revenue. As usual, Kavanda says he filed a report to his bosses at the headquarters but no action was taken. Despite the inertia by the Kenya Railways Corporation management, Kavanda believed that he could help wipe out corruption.
It is for this reason that he refused to be compromised or cowed into submitting to the corrupt forces. Instead his resolve to risk his life and dig deep into the corruption labyrinth was cemented.
It was then that he started filing his reports confidentially to an officer at the Office of the President. Incidentally, another officer in the Office of the President would later leak his reports to his bosses at Kenya Railways. Waving a folder containing the various reports he filed to his bosses, Kavanda says he always keeps his evidence safe.
Flipping through the folder, he opens a report on corrupt sale of Railway land plots and houses at the Coast region, which he says was done irregularly without by the corporation’s management without consultations.
He says the houses were sold to top Railways bosses at throwaway prices and to other well-connected individuals.
"It should be investigated to establish whether the sale was illegally or legally done and whether the sale was done on market price or not and whether money got from the sale was used for the intended purpose," wrote Kavanda in his report. "This was only in Mombasa, What about in other stations in the country?" he wonders. His reports were also forwarded to the Efficiency Monitoring Unit and Kenya Anti Corruption Commission (KACC).
Too embarrassed that their corrupt ways were getting exposed, the corporation’s management hatched a plot to sack him when they realised he had started filing reports to the Office of the President.
Fighting the illegal dismissal has cost him a lot of money and time but years later and despite a government’s body recommending his reinstatement, he is yet to get back his job.
Rewarding Kavanda for his courage in exposing this corruption, KNCHR noted: "Like many other whistle blowers in Kenya, Kavanda has suffered witch-hunting and subsequent malicious dismissal from the Corporation by a compromised board that never summoned him to hear his side of the story."
"Kavanda was forcefully evicted from a railway house in Likoni Mombasa. The director, of the Efficiency Monitoring Unit, in a letter dated August 7 recommended that Mr Kavanda be reinstated but the Corporation has failed to do so to date," KNCHR noted in its citation.
Dangerous mission
It observed that in Kenya, whistle blowers, especially junior Government and corporate officials, are not protected by law against dismissal and other retaliation mechanisms.
Without avenues for citizens to access public information and with no incentives for citizens to report wrongdoing, Kenya is among the most dangerous places in the world for whistleblowers, it added.
The human rights watchdog said by conferring Kavanda the award, it hoped to spur investigations into corrupt activities and malpractices in state corporations.
"The awards committee appeals to the Government to reinstate Kavanda as had been recommended by the Efficiency Monitoring Unit," it added.
"The committee also hopes to motivate stakeholders to continue agitating the enactment of a Freedom of Information Bill with a strong whistleblower protection clause."
After the recognition of his efforts by KNCHR, Kavanda hopes the award will help open doors for him.
He hopes he will get a good job or that Kenya Railways will reinstate him or even pay his dues.
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| The subject of whistleblowing |
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