Jimi Wanjigi strode into the office of the Prime Minister one morning in early 2008. Raila Odinga was already at his desk, dipping purposefully into an overflowing tray of official papers.
Wanjigi was not an ordinary fixer. In the grand coalition government, there were brokers and wheeler-dealers. Then there was Jimi Wanjigi, the man who ‘got things done.’
Shrewd but self-effacing, Wanjigi’s name was known to many Kenyans but few could pick him out in a crowd. Indeed, only one picture of him could be found in the library of the country’s second biggest newspaper — a grainy facial shot cropped out of a group picture. Whoever took it had stumbled on luck.
Whatever forced Wanjigi to visit Mr Odinga, the co-principal in the Grand Coalition, that day could not be simple. He preferred to operate in the shadows but this was an issue he had to handle himself.
A deal he had helped midwife was falling apart, chipping away one day at a time. The proposal to build a Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Mombasa to Nairobi, at an eye-watering Sh327 billion, was facing the prospect of a stillbirth, chocked by resistance from Rift Valley Railways (RVR). Wanjigi was determined to save it. Time was running out.
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The fragile coalition government, formed after a power-sharing deal between President Mwai Kibaki and Mr Odinga, was just settling in office. Wanjigi needed the matter cleared before the government found its footing — before committees of bureaucrats and railway experts set their probing eyes on the papers.
“RVR had refused to allow Jimi access the railway siding to carry out the feasibility study for the project. This access was also important for them to do a technical drawing,” a highly placed individual close to the making of the railway project said.
A son of former Kamukunji MP Maina Wanjigi, Jimi knew how government worked, when to go to a higher office and when to stay on the corridors.
The businessman was banking on Raila, with whom he was close friends, to help stop the deal from crumbling. The depth of their friendship would become obvious to the public eight years later after the death of Wanjigi’s bossom friend, Jacob Juma, which Raila repeatedly condemned. They were both prominent at Juma’s politically-charged funeral. The other problem Wanjigi faced that morning was dealing with the Transport Principal Secretary Cyrus Njiru, a new appointee at the corner office. But that could wait.
Raila phoned the RVR boss, who had become a stumbling block to Wanjigi’s project. Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere, who was also in that meeting, was asked to invoke sanctions against RVR if it refused to cooperate. He warned that if RVR remained opposed to the feasibility study, then the government would punish it. RVR was headed into its third year as the operators of the old meter gauge line. RVR had won the concession from October 1, 2006. But pushed to the wall, RVR pulled back. After the meeting, everything came back on track. But not for long. It was the first time Raila intervened in the project. To calm RVR, the team proposed a soft landing for them in case the new Mombasa-Nairobi railway became a reality. “It was suggested that RVR would transform the old track into a tourist line to Tsavo, like the blue train of South Africa,” the source said.
But it was not until August 12, 2009 that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed for a feasibility study and the preliminary design for Phase One. The first phase is the line between Mombasa and Nairobi. The study was being undertaken by China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). Besides, it was going to cost the government nothing, since the Chinese company —CRBC— had volunteered to do it for ‘free.’
The feasibility study now cleared, the next mountain Wanjigi had to scale was getting the construction contract.
This isn’t news.
We have been saying right here on Ktalk for a very long time that babuon will attempt to get credit for the project the way he had done with many others before. Thika Road, Voi - Taveta, By passes all around Nairobi and many others.
Now if 327 billions was in the know from 2008 why sing of its embezzlement.
malizia hekaya
Raila’s wheeler dealers were ostensibly pushed aside from the project.
That’s what led to the cancellation of the upgrade of the JKIA. But then, if Bond was behind Anglo leasing, why did Uhuru agree to pay ?
the explanation given was that international creditors could have blacklisted Kenya. But cancelling the Greenfield Terminal was painful and costly as well.
what is this supposed to be for raila?
@spear anakujia wapi kwa hii hekaya?
Here we go again.
Jupilii development projects chief officer
Bond is well connected
Me think the amount paid was shared btwn the Good Guys na Persons in Government.
Mambo ya International creditors ni yao. This were shell companies registered aboard. How does G.o.K establish that. Then turn around and pay them ?
the story is so convoluted that even a tribunal was unable to unearth anything substantial. Soma hiyo story ya Wanjigi and see how tendepreneurs work in govt, and that was from 2008 when the SGR was allegedly conceived… now imagine the Anglo fleecing scandal that was born in the Moi era, inherited by Narc Govt, and the ghost was on the brink of carrying over into the Jubilee regime.
Thanks. This was quite interesting. Something that peaked my interest was the 200,000 shillings figure. The same figure came up during the investigations into corruption in the PAC as read here and other sources I can’t get to right now.
http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2015/03/13/ababu-namwamba-to-share-bribery-recording-with-eacc-tape-captures-sh15_c1100591
Is that a coincidence or is that the going rate for MPs in these committees? I’m not asking, just thinking out loud.
@spear shows you actual, physical infrastructure that has come up in the past four years. Whatever James Bond and JaKuon were cooking does not take anything away from the progress that has been made. IMHO, @spear avoids political back-and-forth of the kind that preoccupies our hopeless, retrogressive opposition.