NAIROBI, Kenya- Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru says she regrets trusting people she believed would protect her while she was serving in the Cabinet, recalling a period when she felt a narrative was being pushed against her.
Speaking during a live interview on Citizen TV on Sunday, October 18, Waiguru described herself as “very naïve” and said she believed she was being set up but did not act quickly enough.
“I should have actually called the DCI. I should have made it public,” she said, adding that she had expected someone to defend her but they did not.
Waiguru said she later concluded that she had been naïve and that “eventually after I fought off, everyone backed off”.
She said the account is included in her memoir.
Her remarks appear to refer to the National Youth Service (NYS) scandal, which engulfed the Ministry of Devolution and Planning during her tenure as Cabinet Secretary.
The scandal centred on allegations that about KSh791 million was siphoned from the NYS through payments to six companies between December 2014 and April 2015.
Prosecutors charged a number of business people and public officials in connection with the alleged fraud.
Waiguru was not among those charged in the main Sh791 million case.
At the time, she was identified as a prosecution witness.
She resigned as Cabinet Secretary in November 2015 amid mounting pressure over the scandal.
The governor was, however, publicly implicated by businesswoman Josephine Kabura, a suspect in the case, in an affidavit filed in 2016.
Waiguru denied knowing Kabura and rejected the allegations.
Later that year, she appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, where she disputed claims about her role in NYS operations and the allocation of funds.
The handling of the investigations also became contentious.
In February 2016, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) was reported to have cleared Waiguru.
But EACC chairman Philip Kinisu later clarified that the commission’s finding concerned four separate NYS matters referred to it, and did not amount to a clearance in the Sh791 million investigation, which was being handled by another agency.
The criminal proceedings produced separate outcomes for different accused people.
In 2023, a magistrate acquitted former NYS Director-General Nelson Githinji, former Devolution Principal Secretary Peter Mangiti and businessman Ben Gethi, ruling that the prosecution had not presented enough evidence to put them on their defence.
