Tit-Bits: Maina Kamanda Admits a “Mafia Cartel” is in Control of Uhuru’s Government
“It is true there are powerful cartels working under the command of multi-billion business people. They are viciously scouting for tenders in government and in state corporations. I can tell you there is a mafia in control,” Starehe MP Maina Kamanda said.
Kenya Stockholm Blog 
Dangerous businessman who has irked Uhuru
Yesterday in the Rift Valley an angry President Uhuru referred to a businessman who sponsors politicians to elective office and just because he recently lost the massive contract to build the new railway line from Mombasa this businessman had instructed politicians whom he had sponsored to muddy the political waters and cause trouble for Uhuru and his government.
This same influential businessman is the one who has also fueled the URP rebellion against President Uhuru Kenyatta. URP is William Ruto’s political party.
A visibly angry Uhuru said that the politician will NOT succeed.
Who was the president referring to? Impeccable sources late last night confirmed to me the identity of the man who has upset the president.
Fascinatingly as indicated in these Raw notes in the past Kulei has been sponsoring William Ruto in politics for years and is the single individual most responsible for getting Ruto to where he is today. Even in the just concluded general elections he is the one who fully bankrolled Ruto campaigns. He also footed the bill for the campaigns of the vast majority of URP MPs, senators and woman’s reps.
Now this gets fascinating because yesterday Ruto joined the chorus of hitting out at the said politician and although he was not named Ruto must have known who was being referred to. Wow!!!
My source told me last night; “Apparently Kulei has been working on this deal for years with some contractor. He just needed a little more time and space and he would have had it in the bag. It was a mega, mega, money making deal.”
“Then the Chinese approached UK cause nothing was moving and said they were willing to deal. UK said. Lets move, I am the president. And the rail line was launched. Ruto and Kulei were left speechless.”
So the million shilling question now is; Is Ruto involved in stirring up the trouble within URP? I am following up the answer to that key, game changing question and will get back to you soon.
But meanwhile there is another question I can answer; who the hell is Kulei?
Younger Kenyans will have no idea who Kulei is and older ones may need their memories jogged a little so here is some background on the guy who must be the most fascinating entrepreneur to have ever operated in the banana republic.
In the late 1990s a friend who was a MOI aide at the time described a meeting with Joshua Kulei to me that left me dumbfounded.
The man had such limited formal education that when discussing projects like in this case a newspaper property, the man had problems understanding some basic English words that have something to do with the industry but cannot be easily translated into Swahili or his native Kalenjin vernacular.
Yet his street-smartness and survival instincts enabled him to be one of President Moi’s longest serving aides. He is still very much an untouchable because his finances and how he acquired them are so closely intertwined with those of the former president that it would be very difficult to successfully prosecute him without prosecuting Moi too.
Interestingly, Kulei has a brother called Terer Kulei who lives in New York and manages several properties which Kulei owns in the United States. The Kulei’s have a reputation in New York for retaining very healthy bank accounts.
It is quite something that a lowly former prison warden has chosen to set up office in the Big Apple where even many wealthy Americans cannot afford to live let alone do business. And his wealth is growing because he has retained some of the best stock brokers in the world to trade in shares for him both in New York and London.
Terer who is younger than Kulei visits Kenya only briefly and spends most of his time in New York with his family. When he visits Kenya he is usually seen in Kulei’s offices in Nairobi at Trans National Bank (Kulei has major interests in the bank).
So where did the initial vast sums of money to invest in New York come from? His pension from the Kenya Prisons pension fund perhaps? I am being cynical here and angrily so because so cocky are these thieves of public funds that when interviewed they deny everything without giving any solid basis for their denial. They even have the audacity to sue those who dare state the obvious. Shortly after Kibaki became president Gideon Moi said that he was considering suing the Guardian in London who did an article based on the Kroll report. Maybe the Gurdian legal team should start their defense by demanding that the court ask the complainant how he is able to afford to take legal action in Britain. This would be firm basis for proving that whatever there is in the Kroll report and whatever was published in the Guardian is true and in fact only a tip of the iceberg.
Anyway back to Kulei. Sometimes in November 2003 there was a meeting at the ex-president’s Kabarak home which was attended by his sons Philip and Gideon, as well as long serving aide Joshua Kulei. Also in attendance was trusted family lawyer, Dr Kiplagat. The main agenda of the meeting was to explore how best to protect the vast family wealth, both locally and broad from any possible political interference.
By this time some of Moi’s worst fears had already unfolded and there were already threats to have the former president write a statement to assist in corruption investigations which was very strongly resisted by MPs from Rift Valley. One of the individuals who saved the former president and urged his colleagues within the then powerful ODM to leave him alone was one Raila Amollo Odinga.
To many political observers this was puzzling but there is a very simple explanation. In his long years in politics Moi had learnt that a politician’s most valuable asset is calling in favours and Moi had accumulated plenty in his 24 years as president. Moi spared Raila’s life over his involvement in the failed 1982 coup (many others involved in a much smaller way went to the gallows) and Moi simply called in this major favour of the past in his hour of need.
Still, the meeting in Kabarak in November 2003 was not without plenty of drama. The family lawyer started off by advising the Moi’s to keep as much of their wealth and assets as they possibly could overseas. The lawyer pointed out that legally no court order or ruling had been issued declaring the Moi wealth as having been acquired through corrupt or illegal means, which would be required by the government in order to freeze assets and bank accounts abroad. The Mois were also advised to use trusts that were experienced in hiding controversial assets on behalf of high profile clients.
But during that meeting, it emerged that Joshua Kulei’s own estimates of the amount he held in trust for the Moi family and which he was now required to surrender and estimates of the same by Moi’s sons did not tally. If anything there was a huge difference. The tension got so high that death threats are believed to have been issued against Kulei.
Matters got worse at a meeting later held at Philip’s house to try and resolve the misunderstanding over the issue and Kulei made the unfortunate decision to go outside the Moi family to seek for help. It is highly likely that this is the move that caused details of the meeting to leak to those who were not involved. Kulei consulted Mr Tum of the Kenya Seed Company to talk to the former president on his behalf. He told Tum that the crux of the problem was that the president’s sons had failed to make any distinction between his (Kulei’s) private wealth and that which he held for the former president in trust.
Now it is unlikely that such a matter will ever end up in court, but even if it did, Kulei would never win. It is clear that Kulei who was a poverty stricken prisons warder by the time he was appointed to handle the Moi wealth did not have any personal wealth of his own apart from what he was looking after on behalf of his benefactor. Any monies he would have earned for himself during that time would have either involved the use of the same funds he was supposed to look after or at least by virtue of his position. This means that the Moi’s sons had a point and all the money belonged to the Moi’s since he was paid to do the job. But Kulei obviously saw things differently. The man’s background and education is of great help in trying to understand his thinking in such a clear-cut matter.
Still Kulei is as crafty as they come and not only did he manage to survive the death threats but also reengineered himself very successfully in a few short years to become a leading entrepreneur chasing huge government contracts like the Railway line from Mombasa to the interior of the East African region.
I may be wrong but I would put my money on Kulei getting out of the current mess he has gotten into with the Uhuru Kenyatta government. Ruto, I am not too sure.
Cartels exist whether it is denied or not.