He was responding to Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah who asked Oparanya to explain graft cases linked to him.
Wycliffe Opraranya, the Cabinet Secretary (CS) nominee for Co-operatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Development, has claimed the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) never summoned him to record a statement regarding the Ksh1.3 billion graft scandal that he was linked to.
While appearing before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments on Sunday, August 4, Oparanya noted that he was not aware of any ongoing probe against him and that he has never been grilled to shed more light on the case by any authorities.
He was responding to Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah who asked Oparanya to explain graft cases linked to him.
“Nobody has approached me to write a statement. I have never been given a chance to tell my side of the story.
EACC offices at Integrity Centre in Nairobi. /FILE
“Nobody has come to take a statement from me. I don’t even know what I’m being accused of because I’m only seeing it in the papers,” Oparanya responded.
The former Kakamega governor emphasized that he served diligently for 10 years as governor and was a minister for five years. He explained that there were audit reports, none of which identified him as corrupt.
“When I was Minister for Planning, the ministry was voted the best-performing ministry. Look at your records, when I was governor, everywhere people were saying devolution was working in Kakamega.
“If I worked for 10 years and nobody came to my office about any corruption case until August 2023, when we were involved in demonstrations,” he said.
He traced the genesis of the accusations to the 2023 anti-government protests in August led by the Azimio la Umoja coalition when he received a call from someone who informed him that EACC was looking for him due to his involvement in the demonstrations.
According to Oparanya, the anti-graft body also wanted to get clarity from him regarding his connections with Azimio leader Raila Odinga and whether he kept firearms at home.
Additionally, he stated that the officers asked him to explain where the opposition was getting funds to finance the demonstrations.
“What has the questions got to do with corruption? So, as I sit here, Honourable Chairman, nobody has come to take any statement from me. I don’t know what I am being accused of because I am also just seeing it in the papers like you,” he addressed.
He explained that his lawyer obtained documents when the EACC went to court to freeze money that was not in their account, adding that the money in question was in Central Pension Fund (CPF) accounts, where he was buying property.
“So, when CPF was called by the EACC to provide a statement, they were the ones who alerted me that they were tracking the money I had paid into their account. The money had nothing to do with Kakamega County; it was from my account and from someone who was buying my house,” he said.
He stated that 20 EACC officers came to his home, some in police uniform and others in plain clothes, a matter which prompted him to apply for protection as his family was subjected to harassment, adding “I was scared due to the way they were questioning me. I didn’t know what would happen next, so I went to court for protection.”
Oparanya explained that he only went to the EACC headquarters in October 2023 to collect his children’s which were collected by the officers. He also stated that not even the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) had informed him about the allegations.
The nominee further argued that the probe has been one-sided and he has never been allowed to narrate his side of the story.
EACC had in August indicated in a statement that its officers completed a search targeting various homes belonging to the former Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Deputy Party Leader in a bid to acquire leads that would help them solve the case regarding the missing funds.
The anti-corruption body added that the Kakamega County investigation was part of numerous high-impact investigations into the loss of public funds that it was undertaking in various County Governments, which were at the time at different stages.
