PARLIAMENT is yet to decide on the choice of lawyer PLO Lumumba for the top anti-corruption job, it emerged yesterday.

Parliamentary committee on administration of justice chaired by Mohamed Abdikadir said it is yet to meet to deliberate on the choice offered by the Okong'o Omogeni-chaired Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission advisory board.

Abdikadir said the choice of Lumumba and two other assistant director nominees Pravin Bowry and Prof Jane Onsogo remained the board's choices and Parliament will have its say.

"We have not been able to meet for a number of reasons, one being that this fell on Christmas eve and as you know, most members were away. And so as of now and until we meet, the names we have remain the board's choice," Abdikadir said.

He said his team would meet as soon as enough quorum is raised and would work out on the names to ensure that by the time the House reconvenes, the committee dispenses the matter.

Lumumba is slated to fill the position of former director Aaron Ringera who resigned early last month following public pressure.

On the other hand, Bowry and Onsongo are to replace Dr Smokin Wanjala and Fatuma Sichale who also resigned alongside Ringera after Parliament quashed a presidential decision reappointing them for another five-year term.

The three had been reappointment without recourse to proper legal procedures set out in the law and which now the advisory board is following.

Under the law, the board nominates candidates and forwards them to Abdikadir's committee which deliberates and if satisfied of their merits, tables their names in Parliament for endorsement.

Once Parliament approves of the nominees, the President is at liberty to formally appoint them to their positions.

Yesterday, Abdikadir said his committee would also be deliberating on the nominees for the dispute resolution committee

DEFIANT Kenya Anti Corruption Commission Advisory Board now plans to raise funds within its membership to put up newspaper adverts seeking to replace embattled Justice Aaron Ringera.

This follows a flat refusal by Ringera on Tuesday to sanction the payment of adverts setting the process for his replacement together with that of his assistant director Fatuma Sichale and former assistant director Dr Smokin Wanjala.

Ringera, who is the chief accounting officer of the anti-graft body and who also serves as the secretary to the board, has insisted that there is no vacancy to be filled as the President had already re-appointed the trio.

"We are considering the prospects of us raising the money to pay for these adverts because he has refused to pay for them. He is the only link we have to the KACC secretariat and when he refuses to cooperate, it's a tricky affair," a member of the board said.

The board member told The Star that it is very critical that the board sets in motion the process to replace the three to offset claims of inaction and complicity in the President's action to appoint them.

The source also talked of the board's encounter with Ringera on Tuesday evening. "We felt ambushed because we had met to give notice of an intended meeting where the issue of the adverts was to be discussed only for him to pull a fast one on us."

The board will meet again on Thursday next week when the fund raising deal would be discussed. The adverts had already been approved for placement in two dailies tomorrow.

Parliament said it looks up to the board to fill the posts which it considers vacant.

THE hearing of an injunction that has stalled a Sh96 million corruption case against Agriculture minister William Ruto for five years began yesterday.

The minister and eight others were charged in 2004 with obtaining Sh9,916,830 part of the total sum from Kenya Pipeline Company finance manager by pretending he was in a position to sell land belonging to the Environment Ministry.

The 1.745 hectares land is situated within Ngong Forest.

But the minister rushed to the high court and filed the constitutional application challenging the criminal proceedings at the chief magistrate's office.

He told a three-judge bench yesterday that he is a stranger to the case and cannot be held liable because all the actions and decisions that led to the sale were approved by the government.

Through his lawyer Katwa Kigen, the minister argued that his right to secure protection of the law is violated.

He said he did not receive any monies, as evidence adduced in court shows that the money from KPC went into Kenya Times account and not his.

In the magistrate court, Ruto is accused together with former president Moi personal aide Joshua Kulei, Baringo Central MP Sammy Mwaita, Sovereign Group Limited, Berke Commercial Agencies, Priority Limited, Celtic Multy stems and Somog and Limited.

But the minister argued that the accusations have been brought based on discrimination and out of malice.

SACKED Kenya Bureau of Standards boss Dr Kioko Mang'eli left office yesterday saying he was the victim in a 'terrible war' against counterfeit goods.

Mang'eli, who was in the third month of his second three-year term as head of Kebs, handed over to the Director of Metrology and Testing Joel Kioko in a hurriedly convened press conference at the organisation's headquarters yesterday afternoon.

The meeting was presided over by Industrialization PS Prof John Lonyangapuo and senior Kebs officials.

"It's tribal and political. I was given the (sacking) letter yesterday but I wasn't given a chance to explain myself," a bitter Mang'eli told journalists at the meeting.

He claimed unnamed politicians who wanted to make money for 2012 election campaigns from counterfeit goods had hounded him out of office.

"I don't regret being pushed out, they will also not live in power," he said. "Tomorrow I might be the Prime Minister or President and I will be there with them."

Mang'eli was sacked on September 8 through a letter by head of civil service Francis Muthaura but vowed to stay on saying the sack was not procedural.

Ukambani politicians including Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo and Mutito MP Kiema Kilonzo rushed to his support and faulted the Government for sacking him.

Police had recently been instructed to arrest Mang'eli if he showed up the bureau offices in South C.

His fate was finally sealed last Friday during a meeting at Harambee House between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, before the PM flew out to the United States.

Prof Lonyangapuo was instructed to inform Mang'eli of the orders and enforce the decision.

Yesterday, the PS skirted questions from the press but said Kioko would be the acting head until the board advertises the position, and a new MD is picked.

He heaped praise on the sacked director and said he managed to turn round fortunes of the bureau.

"Nobody failed and that's why the board appraised him," Lonyangapuo said.

Mang'eli accused leaders of cheating' the public on the financial position of Kebs. "As I leave, Kebs has Sh1.8 billion in the banks. They can go to National Bank and ask (managing di-rector Reuben) Marambii," he said, waving documents.

Muthaura had accused Mang'eli of seeking a pay rise after falsifying Kebs documents to show that he had turned the organisation's fortunes around.

The National Standards Council (Kebs board) had upped his salary from Sh480,000 to Sh 1,070,000.

Mang'eli however said the pay rise was decided at a meeting chaired by Minister of Public Service Dalmas Otieno.

The board had claimed the MD had turned Kebs' fortunes around from Sh300 million surplus in 2005-2006 to Sh826 million in the 2007-2008 financial year. However, audited financial statements show Kebs had a surplus of Sh288 million in 2006-2007 and Sh229 million in the period 2007-2008.

Mang'eli, who had also been accused of irregularly employing and promoting employees, was unrepentant and said he did so because Kebs had enough money.

"We've employed 150 people and increased salaries without receiving any money from the government," he said.

For a while, it seemed we were headed for quiet times. The Shinyalu and Bomachoge by-elections had been peacefully concluded. And the controversy over the proposed Mau evictions was at last heading towards a humane resolution.

But instead, political temperatures have risen. And this time it is over the reappointment of Justice Aaron Ringera as the Director-General of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission.

Judging by what newspaper readers and TV viewers have to say, it seems a majority are outraged at this decision. Justice Ringera is widely considered to have failed to deliver, and many want to see his quick exit.

I think a lot of this anger is misplaced. I would say Justice Ringera should be allowed to keep his job, provided only that he goes further than the KACC's advisory board on the pro-posed salary reduction.

The proposed reduction of the director general's salary by 35 per cent does not go far enough.

What Ringera should do is accept a pay cut of 75 per cent, and then cling to his appointment letter, having made it clear he is not in it for the money. He would still be left with some Sh625,000 a month, which is still a huge salary for a purely ceremonial job.

The point which most critics seem to ignore is that Ringera's position has little to do with fighting corruption. This director-general-ship, like the other grand title in this field, The Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics — held briefly by the fabled John Githongo — is part of the elaborate window-dressing the government set up a few years ago to appease the donors by suggesting something was being done about corruption.

Which is not to say that anybody is actually fooled by this eyewash. But rather that it provides something that can be mentioned in speeches when the government is defending itself from accusations of not being serious about corruption. And the proof that this is the case was provided by Ringera himself, when he spoke on numerous occasions of the lack of teeth which faced the KACC, and how his commission was helpless to use the evidence they had of economic crimes, since he had no powers of prosecution.

John Githongo likewise, after realising that he was getting nowhere, unilaterally changed his job description from that of adviser to His Excellency the President on Ethics and Governance to that of a spy-at-large. In this new role, he recorded private discussions which would later enable him to betray friend and colleagues who were foolish enough to speak plainly, because they trusted him.

I once knew someone who held a senior appointment at one of our diplomatic missions abroad, and was congratulating him on having scaled the heights of diplomatic service, when he told me that there really wasn't that much to it. Most of what he did was just to hang out, he said.

And Justice Ringera's job is really no different. He basically just hangs out. And those naive enough to be taken in by the elaborate pretense that this job has something to do with fighting corruption have only themselves to blame if they find that nothing of that kind is happening.

Mind you, these positions which allow the holder to hang out for a period of some three very pleasant years or so are among the most sought after in the whole country. And any politician of stature will have a whole troop of hangers-on determined to somehow get to hang out at taxpayers' expense for the next three years. Some manage this by getting diplomatic postings to non-crucial friendly states. Others get to serve on commissions of inquiry of one kind or another.

There was a time when even the CEOs of state corporations were appointed mostly from the ranks of such hangers-on. But that is not so frequent these days of performance contracts. In addition, boards of directors have learned to assert them-selves, just as the advisory board of the KACC is now doing in opposing the presidential appointment.

How far they will get with this defiance remains to be seen. But the outcome actually does not matter, once you realise this position is of no real significance, and that it hardly matters at all who holds it.

If Justice Ringera will agree to a 75 per cent pay-cut just to assure us that personal greed is not what drives him he should be allowed to keep his job.

Wycliffe Muga comments on topical issues.