• Ruto has denied wrongdoing and called for speedy investigations so culprits can be punished.
• Odhiambo said the DP knows every detail about the plot, hence should be questioned.
Image: Lameck Baraza
Gem MP Elisha Odhiambo has told DP William Ruto to stop talking carelessly about the Sh39 billion military arms scam and instead tell the DCI what he knows or resign.
The office of the DP has been under fire over the alleged fraud after former Sports CS Rashid Echesa met with some foreigners at Harambee House Annex. Ruto has denied wrongdoing and called for speedy investigations so culprits can be punished.
But Odhiambo said the DP knows every detail about the plot. He spoke while meeting residents at the constituency office on Monday. The legislator dispatched Sh16 million bursary cheques.
Odhiambo cautioned leaders against entertaining corruption, especially high-level ones such as those linked with the DP’s office.
"Our intervention in the fight against corruption is to ensure we leave a heritage for future generations by leading by example and not by corruption," he said.
The MP said Ruto's confirmation that fraudsters met in his office for 23 minutes is enough for the EACC to arrest him for questioning.
"When Kozlowski Bruno [said to have been conned] went to Poland and met in the embassy of Kenya in Poland, they paid a courtesy call on Ruto’s daughter who is the deputy ambassador, an indication that the DP was right in the middle of the fraud," he said.
He added that if Ruto was genuine he should have reported the matter to security agencies when Echesa was holding illegal meetings in his office.
"[Businessman] Habert Ojwang revealed that he took some money with some Chinese to the deputy president’s office, which means that the DP’s office is the citadel of corruption," Odhiambo said, referring to the multibillion-shilling tender of Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, a project that was suspended in 2015.
"The other day he was at the centre of the dam scandal and the land scandal. Within no time, he is again at the centre of Sh39 billion fraud. That cannot be a leader but a thief."
Odhiambo said if the deputy president cannot come clean, he has no business being the deputy president.
Through his spokesman, David Mugonyi, Ruto said his office is cooperating with detectives. He had earlier termed the matter a smear campaign against him, insisting that only thorough investigations would reveal the truth.
Echesa has been charged alongside Daniel Otieno, Clifford Okoth and Kennedy Mboya. They were arraigned in Milimani, Nairobi, where they denied 12 counts of conspiracy to commit a felony, making a document without authority and obtaining Sh11.5 million from Kozlowski Bruno by falsely pretending they would award him a tender to supply military equipment.