Raila terms graft claims against Oparanya is a political witch-hunt
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Raila demands the war on graft to be neutral and fair terming the arrest of Wycliffe Oparanya as a political witch-hunt by the government
Raila demands the war on graft to be neutral and fair terming the arrest of Wycliffe Oparanya as a political witch-hunt by the government.
Azimio leader Raila Odinga has rubbished a witch-hunt graft investigation into former Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya.
The leader of the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya coalition demanded that the fight against corruption be impartial and fair.
While supporting investigations into all forms of corruption, Raila insisted that these inquiries must be free of politics.
Any investigations into corruption, according to the leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) party, must not focus on alleged rivals of the Kenya Kwanza administration.
Raila warned that if graft investigations are left to only go after the government’s opponents, then it would erode public confidence in state institutions.
”This is a witch-hunt and an afterthought. Oparanya has been in office and he’s left…..the authorities can now only come after him if there is an audit…you don’t get EACC coming out of the blue carrying out investigations. What sort of investigations are they carrying out?” Raila said.
According to Raila, the directorate of criminal investigations is obliged to intervene and conduct an investigation and make a prosecution recommendation once the auditor-general audits the county government accounts.
Only then, in Raila’s opinion, can audit questions be resolved via investigations as opposed to “political propaganda platforms.”
”He(Oparanya) finished his job and handed it over a year ago, he is no longer in office. So we are now dealing with a post mortem and during a post-mortem, you don’t need to come after anyone. There should be audit accounts which show some kind of wrongdoing,” he said.
Raila insisted that EACC should also deal with what he termed as ongoing graft in the Kenya Kwanza administration.
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”They cannot just be running around roguishly arresting people in the name of carrying out investigations. This is a political witch-hunt,” Raila said from Dubai.
Raila Odinga also claimed that the EACC is targeting other former governors in Azimio including ex-Laikipia county boss Nderitu Muriithi and former Murang’a governor Mwangi Wa Iria.
”So they are just trying to target Azimio-leaning officials and those who were in government in the previous administration, including former MPs, senators, governors, and so on,” he claimed.
Raila remarks comes after Oparanya was on Wednesday grilled by the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission officers over alleged misappropriation of Sh1.3 billion during his tenure as Kakamega governor.
The ex-governor immediately termed the investigations a political witch-hunt targeting opponents of the Kenya Kwanza government.
However, the EACC denied any political motive behind the probe saying the body was exercising its mandate independently after years of scrutiny of the Kakamega county finances.
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