Richard Lagat Rubbished Atwoli's Letter And Invested Into Scandal Ridden Tassia Phase II Project

Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) secretary-general Francis Atwoli has been in bad books with NSSF management because of the Tasia Phase II project that had the initial contract of Sh3.3 billion cooked to Sh5 billion. Richard Langat was suspended from his position as NSSF Managing Trustee after investigations were opened against him by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, (EACC) following his approval of Sh5.053 billion awarded as a tender to a construction company, China Jiangxi International Kenya, for the development of the Tassia housing scheme. Complaints about the project were raised by COTU led by Francis Atwoli. Langat fraudulently approved the project without the approval of a rightly constituted NSSF board to go ahead. “The Tassia project is the biggest scandal seen by NSSF and we will not sit aside and let the people involved get away with it,”  Atwoli said then. An attempt by to lodge private prosecution proceedings against the trustees of the fraud filled NSSF management over the Sh5 billion Tassia II Development Project by Atwoli was also thwacked by former DPP Keriako Tobiko through an assistant Joseph Gitonga who stated that it was malicious and intended to achieve personal interests Here is the Presser that Atwoli released after Lagat used his letter to wipe his feet without knowing that things will turn out different real quick and leave his corrupt head in the furnace. COTU/ADM.1/6/VOL.X/47 PRESS STATEMENT RE: NSSF TASSIA II INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT SCANDAL The Central Organisation of Trade Unions, COTU (K) in December 2013, blew the whistle over the unprocedural manner in which the top management of the National Social Security Fund, (NSSF) caused the approval of a whooping Kshs.5.053 Billion allegedly towards the development of infrastructure at the Tassia II Estate in Embakasi. The resultant threats, harassments, condemnations, as well as outcry from the contributing members to the NSSF, were unprecedented with COTU (K) receiving all manner of attacks from all manner of individuals as some of us continued to be viewed an obstacle to the “smooth’ operation of the NSSF. However, the matter finally became a subject of investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) and in the course of these investigations, I was personally summoned more than four times to appear before the EACC officers to record statements and state what I knew about the matter as were other persons including the Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Services, the NSSF Board of Trustees’ Chairman and the Managing Trustee of the Fund. Consequently and as individuals privy to the process, the investigations were completed in May this year but up to date, there has been no single information on the relevant files in regard to the investigations and any attempts to get information on the matter have been futile despite the many questions that COTU (K) continue to receive from our members who are seeking answers to the question who was behind the scam. One year down the line, both employers and workers continue to wait in anticipation for which COTU (K) has been forced to now write to the Director of Public Prosecutions to personally intervene in the matter and demand for the file to be placed before him for a decision to be made and bring an end to this agony that currently characterizes most Kenyan workers as they await the outcome of these investigations. Equally, as a country, we are setting dangerous precedence where a crime is overtly evident but some individuals connive to conceal the same for their personal interests and as an Organisation, COTU (K) is ready and willing to accept the verdict from the investigations and will no doubt say halleluiah. Francis Atwoli, EBS, MBS SECRETARY-GENERAL