Former Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru has spoken publicly about her home in Nairobi's Kitisuru neighborhood for the first time.
Waiguru, who resigned from the Cabinet in November, stated that she purchased the mansion, valued between Sh100 million and Sh150 million, using a government mortgage.
She wrote,
"With regard to the defamatory insinuation that I bought my house with cash from the proceedings of corruption, had Dr Ndii bothered to make some basic preliminary inquiries, other than relying on rumour mongering, he would have established that the house didn’t cost anything near what they have been spreading out there and that is mostly financed by a government mortgage at an interest of 5 per cent for the next 15 years,"
in response to allegations made by
Saturday Nation
columnist David Ndii.
Corruption Allegations and National Youth Service ¶
Waiguru denied allegations of corruption within the National Youth Service, which was under her jurisdiction. She claimed that her whistleblowing led to the recovery of corruption money and the freezing of assets.
According to Waiguru,
"The shouts by the opposition and the likes of Ndii on the NYS have nothing to do with corruption but their fear of its successful impact on the ground and its implication on the 2017 election in favour of the Jubilee government,"
and
"On matters pertaining to the National Youth Service, Dr Ndii conveniently forgot to mention that this is the first time in the history of this country that corruption money has been recovered and assets frozen as a result of whistleblowing by a government official,"
Dr Ndii had criticized the Jubilee government's handling of corruption and mentioned Waiguru's purchase of an expensive home. However, Waiguru defended her actions and disputed Ndii's claims about Tanzania's economy surpassing Kenya's.
Waiguru argued,
"To make the case that Tanzania will overtake Kenya in five years because they have done away with serving meals during meetings and such token gestures does not constitute economic transformation,"
and
"Unlike Kenya, Tanzania’s constitutional review process failed. This means that Tanzania is yet to make structural changes."
