Intense lobbying for KRA commissioner of customs and border control post – Weekly Citizen

Last week, Kelvin Lewiz Safari, a Taita and Kenya Revenue Authority Commissioner in charge of customs and border control was in court to face various charges.

The case did not proceed due to what was later to emerge as infighting between the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions headed by Noordin Haji and that of Directorate of Criminal Investigations under the tutelage of George Kinoti.

Safari was to be charged with following accounts that revolved around connivance to commit an offence under section 9 (1) (6) of the East African Community Customs and Management Act of 2005.

The charge stated that between March 21 2019 and June 14 2019, Safari connived to unlawfully gazette Nairobi Inland Cargo Terminal (NK) as Kenya Ports Authority peripheral facility aware it did not meet the requirements for gazettement.

The second charge was that on June 14 2019 at Times Towers, Nairobi, being employed by KRA, during the gazettement process of Mitchell Cotts as KPA storage facility, he neglected his official duties by failing to adhere to regulations.

Safari was to face a total of six charges.

Weekly Citizen has information that immediately Safari was arrested and booked at Muthaiga Police Station, Nairobi, waiting to be arraigned at the Milimani Criminal Law Courts; powerful individuals at KRA led by Commissioner General John Mburu were working on who to replace him.

It is said Safari’s political godfather and protector is former cabinet minister Marsden Madoka.

When Madoka arrived at KPA as board chairman, Safari fortunes started to rise and flourish.

Having served as late president Jomo Kenyatta’s aide-de-camp, Madoka is close to the Kenyattas including president Uhuru Kenyatta.

It is said Mburu had earmarked Nicholas Kinoti who was moved from Mombasa and posted to North Rift as regional coordinator to replace Safari.

Kinoti, a rich man by all means while in Mombasa featured in smuggling of ethanol at the customs warehouse of Kilindini. He is said to own shares in CFS.

When the courts set Safari free, Kinoti whom we could not establish if it is true had been moved to Nairobi Times Towers was in a rude shock.

Another name that featured in possibility of replacing Safari is that of Joseph Kaguru who was demoted a KRA commissioner.

Kaguru, when he was assistant commissioner at the port of Mombasa under whose watch the authority experienced a heist of 210 cargo containers disappearing in a record two days from the port is back as a chief officer after a short spell in Western regional office of Kisumu.

Kaguru all along had been boasting of having State House connections and protection. He was smoked out of Mombasa and sent packing to a dormant station in Kisumu.

According to insiders, Kaguru outsmarted all government arms at the port of Mombasa in 2010 and created a cargo movement snarl-up from the cargo terminal, then activated his underground machinery to swiftly create the much-needed space by decongesting the suffocating cargo terminals in a speedy move, which left the authority at a loss with 210 high value cargo containers missing without trace in only two days.

Madoka

That move alone cost the government billions of shillings in lost revenue, money said to have ended up in his godfather’s bank accounts where he drew his share – money that has made Kaguru the rich man that he is today, and now he is able to buy his way back to the Coast, as the regional boss.

In 2018, Kaguru was involved in yet in a scandal where undocumented six containers of highly valued ethanol were released from the port of Mombasa with no paper work, without declaring the importer and the value of the ethanol plus how much was paid in taxes to the authority.

Kaguru who has many cases at the KRA’s Investigations and Enforcement Department has shocked many senior commissioners at the authority as to why he has not been sent home packing, when officers with simple suspicious cases have been summarily dismissed.

It is during Kaguru’s helm at the port of Mombasa, when the country saw increase into transshipment of cargo.

This involved cargo that had arrived at the port of Mombasa on larger vessels, offloaded and transferred to the Mombasa Old Port, reloaded onto smaller vessels purportedly for transshipment to Zanzibar or Comoros but usually returned secretly into the country by offloading the same cargo at some hidden smaller ports on the shores of the Indian Ocean.

In the above move, Kaguru was out rightly assisting Somali and Arab businesspeople in evading payment tax just as he allowed the influx of illegally imported and undocumented sugar from Kiunga to be allowed into Bondeni warehouses in thousands of metric tonnes where there are no KRA records on these importations.

Kaguru is the proud owner of Beach Road Mall in Nyali, Mombasa, a high-end 100-acre coffee plantation at Sikuta in Nyeri, in addition to the eight floor flats he is putting up at Ruringu two kilometres from Nyeri on Othaya Road.

Safari saga comes as KRA has embarked on terminating contractors of top managers on what it terms poor performance, corruption and economic sabotage.

Targeted have been chief managers in customs and domestic, deputy commissioners and junior staff.

KRA is also secretly engaged in lifestyle audit of its staff with those in customs, domestic and co-operate support services being on the radar.

Already, talk is rife that those whose contracts are not being renewed are Luhyas, Luos and Kisiis.

Questions are being asked as to why, a one Ochola, deputy commissioner customs has not been promoted despite being a performer.

Already, those who have had contracts terminated on suspicious grounds are a one Mulindi who was based in Coast Region Domestic Tax Department, another is a Mr Buyela, a chief officer who collapsed upon receiving a letter terminating his duties, a Mr Chacha contract of chief manager also ended prematurely.

All this is happening as top managers known to engage in corrupt deals from Mt Kenya region survive and go away scot-free.

In fact, the Kalenjin managers at KRA are a worried lot. There are claims that after clearing Luhyas, Luos and Kisiis out of the system, they are next earmarked for summary dismissal.

Meyo

Apart from Mburu, Mt Kenya holds top KRA slots in the offices of Commissioner for Social Department, and Commissioner Human Resource managed by one Kashoni.

A one Mukuri is deputy commissioner South Rift Region. Charity Kateru is the deputy Commissioner central while Coast has one Ochola, a Luo.

Elizabeth Meyo, a Luo is Commissioner Domestic Taxes, Terra Sidimu is the Commissioner for Intelligence and Surveillance.