What you need to know about the Anglo-Leasing Scandal

PERERA, DEEPAK KAMANI, JAMES WANJIGI 

Ref: A. 2-28-06 Hoover-Pratt e-mail, with attached 

"Githongo dossier", B. 05 Nairobi 3446 

Classified by Econ Counselor John Hoover for reasons 1.4 

(B) and (D). 

1.  (S) SUMMARY AND ACTION REQUEST: Embassy Nairobi hereby 

seeks security advisory opinions under section 212(F) of 

the Immigration and Nationality Act, Proclamation 7750, 

suspending entry into the United States of the following 

individuals: 

-- Alfred Getonga, 

-- Anura Perera, 

-- Deepak Kamani, 

-- Joseph "Jimmy" Wanjigi. 

Ref B is Embassy Nairobi's request for the suspension of 

entry into the U.S. (subsequently approved by the 

Department) of former Minister Christopher Murungaru for 

his central role in a number of grand-scale corruption 

cases under the administration of Kenyan President Mwai 

Kibaki.  This cable should be read in conjunction with ref 

B, as it expands the case used against Murungaru to include 

chief co-conspirators Getonga, Perera, Kamani, and Wanjigi. 

All were central figures in a network of corrupt government 

officials and private sector dealmakers that has 

systematically stolen, or attempted to steal, a cumulative 

sum as high as $700 million over the past three years by 

exploiting a secretive system of government security- 

related procurement contracts in Kenya.  These activities 

have had a serious adverse effect on U.S. national 

interests in Kenya, which include strengthening democratic 

institutions and the rule of law and fostering economic 

development.  This cable also draws heavily on, and should 

be read in conjunction with, ref A.  Ref A is the first- 

hand account detailing high-level graft and cover-up in the 

Kibaki administration made available to the public in 

January 2006 by John Githongo, the President's anti- 

corruption advisor who went into self-imposed exile in 

February 2005.  The so-called Githongo dossier is a 

credible and detailed account documenting graft and cover- 

up on the part of the aforementioned individuals.  Embassy 

reporting and significant flows of sensitive intelligence 

corroborate Githongo's revelations.  With indictments 

looming, the Government of Kenya has ordered in recent days 

that all four men surrender their passports and any 

personal firearms they may possess.  Further, the Kenya 

Anti-Corruption Authority strongly supports visa revocation 

against the four individuals in light of the Commission's 

own evidence of wrongdoing. 

2.   (S) Getonga has a valid B1/B2 visa expiring July 21, 

2006; Kamani has a valid B1/B2 visa expiring May 14, 2006; 

Wanjigi has previously held visas, the latest being an A2 

which expired in 2003. Getonga, Kamani, and Wanjigi are 

Kenyan nationals; Perera's nationality is unknown at this 

time.  Post recommends Getonga, Perera, Kamani, and Wanjigi 

be found ineligible under Presidential Proclamation 7750. 

Please advise ASAP.  END SUMMARY AND ACTION REQUEST. 

ANATOMY OF A CORRUPTION NETWORK 

------------------------------- 

3.  (C) In April 2004, information emerged publicly that a 

shadowy firm, Anglo Leasing and Finance Limited (Anglo 

Leasing), had secured two bogus contracts with the 

Government of Kenya (GOK).  The first was for the supply of 

new secure passport issuing equipment, and the second for 

the construction of a police forensics lab.  Together, the 

two contracts were worth a combined $90 million.  Anglo- 

Leasing, it turned out, was no more than a "PO Box company" 

with fictitious offices in the UK and Switzerland and no 

identifiable officers or management.  The Anglo-Leasing 

scandal was aggressively investigated at the time by the 

then-Permanent Secretary for Ethics and Governance, John 

Githongo.  Githongo's investigations revealed Anglo-Leasing 

to be only the tip of an iceberg of grand-scale theft. 

They forced the Ministry of Finance to suspend payments and 

order forensic audits on 18 secretive security-related 

procurement contracts that followed a very similar pattern 

to that found in the Anglo-Leasing cases. 

4.  (C) This pattern involved a small clique of private- 

sector dealmakers working together with an equally small 

cadre of senior government conspirators.  Together, they 

would generate proposals for large-scale government 

procurement contracts.  Because these contracts involved 

national security equipment of one kind or another, they 

fell well outside the normal (and already weak) systems of 

scrutiny and oversight found in other parts of the GOK and 

Parliament.  The proposals  frequently requested goods not 

needed or desired by the line ministry targeted to pay for 

them, and involved large upfront payments or commissions 

financed by loans arranged by the businessmen.  The goods 

or services were either vastly overpriced or not supplied 

at all.  This kind of scam generated enormous illicit 

profits, much of which were recycled by the businessmen who 

received the payments to the concerned GOK officials and 

other middlemen for personal gain or to finance future 

political campaigns. 

5.  (C) Githongo resigned from his position following 

several death threats in February 2005, and has been living 

in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom ever since. 

During his time in exile, however, Githongo consolidated 

all of the evidence at his disposal and began on January 

22, 2006, to release portions of it to the Kenyan public 

through the nation's largest daily newspaper.  His now- 

public 19-page summary dossier of evidence paints a 

convincing, coherent, and credible picture of the 

activities of the corruption network described above. 

Moreover, both in its details and overarching narrative, 

his account is strongly corroborated time and again by the 

Embassy's own reporting, as well as sensitive reporting in 

other channels dating to mid-2004. 

6.  (S) Githongo's summary dossier directly implicates 

Murungaru, Getonga, Perera, Kamani, and Wanjigi, as well as 

others, as the core drivers of the corruption network that 

generated the Anglo-Leasing and similar scandals.  Getonga 

used his position as Personal Assistant to the President to 

connect Perera and Kamani, the two private sector 

dealmakers (who had operated for years doing similar deals 

under the previous administration), to Murungaru and other 

complicit senior-level officials in the Kibaki 

administration.  In turn, Wanjigi, the son of a former 

Minister and nephew of a Permanent Secretary already 

arrested for his involvement in Anglo Leasing, was the 

local middleman, channeling contracts and payments in both 

directions as the bogus procurement scams were consummated. 

ALFRED GETONGA 

-------------- 

7.  (S) As Personal Assistant to the President, Alfred 

Getonga used his position in the Office of the President 

(OP) to push forward fraudulent contracts in the OP and in 

other ministries, and then divert a large portion of these 

government resources for political campaign fundraising, 

and for personal gain.  In Githongo's account, former 

Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi (who has also been 

implicated in covering up the Anglo-Leasing scandal) tells 

Githongo that nearly all of the suspect contracts Githongo 

was investigating were engineered by Alfred Getonga and 

others, and that the contracts were designed to raise funds 

for the NARC political party under the direction of Getonga 

and Murungaru.  Githongo's evidence implicating Getonga is 

so substantial that he informed President Kibaki of 

Getonga's direct involvement in Anglo-Leasing in at least 

two separate briefings for the president. Our own reporting 

strongly corroborates Githongo's accounts, and the Embassy 

acted on it in a similar way.  On at least two occasions in 

2005, when solicited by President Kibaki for advice and 

information in one-on-one meetings, the Ambassador 

specifically named Getonga as a significant source of 

corruption in Kibaki's administration. 

8. (SBU) Since the Githongo report has been published, the 

OP has announced publicly that Getonga is no longer 

employed there.  On February 14, 2006, the Presidential 

Press Service announced that Getonga's contract had expired 

and would not be renewed. 

9.  (S) A reliable Embassy source in the telecom sector 

recently reported that Getonga was also at the center of 

the 11th hour cancellation of the tender for a second 

national landline phone operator in Kenya in July 2004. 

Thanks to his position, Getonga was aware ahead of time of 

the winner.  Invoking the President's name, he approached 

the company slated to win and successfully solicited the 

gratis contribution of 5% of the shares under the pretense 

that such a gesture was needed to guarantee winning the 

tender.  When Kibaki learned of this intrigue through his 

son (who was supporting a rival consortium), he angrily 

ordered the entire tender cancelled, setting back telecom 

reform and service delivery in Kenya by several years. 

ANURA PERERA 

------------ 

10. (S) Reliable private sector contacts who have done 

business in Kenya for many years regularly cite Anura 

Perera as a long-standing corrupt dealmaker whose 

activities far pre-date the Anglo Leasing cases.  He is 

nonetheless very difficult to trace, and has proven a 

formidable adversary for law enforcement personnel by 

operating indirectly through a network of dummy 

corporations in Switzerland, the UK, and elsewhere which 

act as conduits for the proceeds of the inflated or 

outright bogus procurement contracts he has engineered over 

the years.  The Githongo dossier, together with sensitive 

reporting, nonetheless provides compelling circumstantial 

evidence against Perera for his role in a series of 

security and military-related procurement scams.  In large 

part as a result, Perera was ordered by the Kenyan police 

to surrender his passport and firearm on February 21, 2006. 

(Note: It is unlikely Perera is in Kenya at this time; nor 

is it clear what kind of passport he carries or under what 

nationality he travels.  End note). 

11.  (S) In the Githongo dossier, an associate of Kamani 

and Perera, working from an office building owned by Perera 

in Nairobi, is reported to have set up bogus companies, 

including Anglo-Leasing, in 1997 for purposes of engaging 

in fraudulent government procurement deals.  As he was 

unraveling the Anglo-Leasing secure passport scam, Githongo 

was indirectly threatened by Perera through then-Justice 

Minister Murungi.  Meeting with Githongo, Murungi cited a 

file compiled by a local lawyer whom Murungi stated was 

acting on Perera's behalf.  He told Githongo that an unpaid 

debt owed by his father was really owed to Perera himself. 

Githongo explained the connection: Murungi "warned me to 

'go easy' on 'our friends' Murungaru and Alfie (Getonga)... 

The message Hon. Kiraitu (Murungi) was communicating very 

directly to me was that Mr. Perera wanted me to to 'turn 

off the heat'" so that his father's debt could be "settled 

amicably." 

12.  (S) Githongo's report goes on to reference "an 

assortment of reliable sources, including within the Kenyan 

military" who told Githongo that "Perera was involved in a 

range of questionable projects in the defense and security 

sector and had developed a reputation for paying sizable 

kickbacks."  Perera, for example, is widely believed to be 

at the center of the Nexus project, a military 

communications complex on the southern outskirts of 

Nairobi.  Three years after the $36.9 million project was 

completed, the Kenyan military has yet to occupy the 

complex.  The Kenyan Department of Defense (KDOD) tender 

committee, which should have overseen implementation of 

such a large contract, has publicly denied ever being aware 

of it.  KDOD sources told Embassy DAO in mid-2005 that the 

project was likely without any specific military purpose or 

plan in mind, but rather for personal gain on the part of 

top military brass.  Perera's connection is through another 

phantom European company, Nedermar BV Technologies, for 

which there is no information on the internet.  It won the 

secretive contract to build the communications center on a 

SIPDIS 

turn-key basis, but its origins and officers remain a 

mystery.  Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) Director 

Aaron Ringera told the Embassy in mid-2005 that he had used 

evidence gathered by KACC on the Nexus project to persuade 

Kibaki to take action against former Chief of Staff Joseph 

Kibwana.  (Note: Kibaki went half-way, asking Kibwana to 

retire early in August 2005.  End note).  Judge Ringera 

told Econ/C and other diplomats in February 2006 that 

Perera was the private sector mastermind behind the Nexus 

deal. 

13.  (S) Perera is also believed to be the mastermind 

behind the procurement of a naval frigate for the Kenyan 

Navy beginning in 2003.  Through a fictitious firm named 

Euromarine, Perera arranged $57 million in financing for a 

ship constructed in a Spanish shipyard at a cost estimated 

to be 3-4 times more than its actual value.  The frigate 

deal was one of the 18 contracts investigated and audited 

after the Anglo-Leasing scandals were revealed and the GOK 

has stopped payments on the vessel.  Compelling sensitive 

reporting places Perera at the very center of the frigate 

deal, and in multiple conversations with Embassy officers, 

Kenya's Permanent Secretary of Finance has repeatedly 

confirmed the facts of the scandal as outlined here. 

DEEPAK KAMANI 

------------- 

14.  (S) Deepak Kamani joins Anura Perera as the other 

long-standing private sector mastermind of fraudulent 

security-related procurement contracts in Kenya over the 

years.  Kamani family businesses first broke into the 

business of exploiting security contracts in the mid-1990s 

after forming close ties with the then-Permanent Secretary 

of Internal Security in the Office of the President.  The 

current Permanent Secretary of Finance, who held the same 

position at the end of the Moi administration, recently 

told the Embassy that Kamani had unnaturally open access to 

Treasury officials in the late 1990s, to the point that he 

mistakenly believed at one time that Kamani was an employee 

of the ministry.  When he assumed his current position for 

a second time as PS Finance in 2004, this same official 

warned counterparts in the Office of the President to cease 

doing business with Kamani, but to no avail. 

15.  (S) Kamani cut his teeth in a multi-million dollar 

contract to supply boilers to the Prisons Department in the 

early 1990s.  The deal continues to be investigated by 

Kenya's Auditor General because the boilers supplied were 

second hand or unserviceable.  Kamani's companies have also 

been directly linked to a $25 million contract in 1997 to 

supply a digital telecommunications network to the Prisons 

Department through LBA Systems, a shell company registered 

in Scotland.  More than five years after the network was 

supposedly installed and commissioned, it remains 

inoperable.  In a similar case, another shadowy Kamani- 

owned company, Infotalent Systems, signed a $36 million 

deal to supply telecommunications equipment to the Office 

of the President.  The deal is believed to be among the 18 

suspect contracts frozen by the Minister of Finance in 2004 

for forensic audit and investigation. 

16.  (C) Kamani is directly implicated in the two Anglo- 

Leasing scams.  He enjoyed close ties and had regular 

access to Zakayo Cheruiyot, the Permanent Secretary of 

Internal Security who was indicted in February 2005 and is 

now on trial for the two Anglo-Leasing cases.  Kamani's 

sister is named as the director of a company in the UK that 

occupies the address given as that of Anglo-Leasing in the 

secure passport deal, and his son is listed as director of 

a company occupying the address listed as that of Anglo- 

Leasing's in the police forensic lab scam.  Finally, the 

Githongo dossier directly links Kamani to the two Anglo- 

Leasing scandals.  In his account, Githongo details his 

conversation with then-Finance Minister David Mwiraria 

about the mysterious return of some of the money paid on 

the Anglo-Leasing forensics lab project.  Mwiraria, despite 

previously claiming not to know who stood behind Anglo- 

Leasing, made a "startling admission" which directly 

implicated both Kamani and himself when he told Githongo 

that the money was only returned after Mwiraria had ordered 

an associate to contact Kamani by phone to do so. 

JIMMY WANJIGI 

------------- 

17.  (S) Like Getonga, Jimmy Wanjigi's role in the Anglo- 

Leasing and similar scandals has been to facilitate and 

channel contracts, communication, and money between the 

private businessmen like Perera and Kamani on the one hand, 

and GOK agencies and officials responsible for procurement 

on the other.  Like Getonga, he is also a relative newcomer 

to high-level graft, having come on the scene following the 

2002 electoral victory of Kibaki's coalition.  Early in the 

Kibaki administration, he traded on his contacts with 

members of Kibaki's family (probably without Kibaki's 

knowledge) to break into Kamani and Perera's networks, and 

to insist on getting a cut from the security-related 

procurement scams the latter had become experts in 

engineering.  One of his first such deals was an extension 

of a Kamani-origin contract begun under the previous 

administration to supply vehicles to the Office of the 

President.  The overpriced contract reportedly netted 

Wanjigi and Murungaru $5.6 million. 

18.  (S) Wanjigi also turns up later as a participant in 

Perera's massively overpriced naval frigate deal, working 

behind the scenes with Perera, Getonga and others to work 

out a way to move the deal forward, despite the risk of 

public exposure.  After the February 2005 resignation of 

John Githongo, he is also widely believed to have worked 

closely with Getonga to put out a number of false rumors to 

discredit Githongo by, for example, circulating rumors and 

planting stories in the media alleging that Githongo was a 

British spy and a child molester.  Githongo himself 

believes Wanjigi and Getonga were behind the death threats 

that forced him to resign and go into self-imposed exile. 

According to Githongo's written account, the very day 

Githongo succeeded in having President Kibaki sack some 

officials since indicted for their involvement in Anglo- 

Leasing, Finance Minister Mwiraria came to Githongo's 

office "and warned that Mr. Jimmy Wanjigi had sworn to kill 

me." 

ADVERSE EFFECT ON U.S. NATIONAL INTERESTS 

----------------------------------------- 

19.  (C) The corruption network that perpetrated the Anglo 

Leasing and similar corruption scandals has had serious 

adverse effects on three areas of U.S. interests specified 

in the proclamation, which are also three of the Embassy's 

top Mission Performance Plan (MPP) priorities: promoting 

democracy and good governance (starting with the stability 

of the government); encouraging sustainable economic 

development; and, combating terrorism and transnational 

crime. 

20.  (C) Before coming to power in December 2002, the 

National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) adopted a "zero- 

tolerance" anti-corruption posture. Public expectations 

were high that the new government would break with the 

corrupt excesses of the Moi administration, and 

international donors made plans to help bolster Kenya's 

nascent anti-corruption effort. However, by December 2003, 

barely a year into NARC's tenure in office, high-level 

officials were engaging in precisely the corrupt practices 

they had vowed to stop, helped in great part by the 

seamless transition into the new administration provided by 

Getonga, of the corruption network led on the private 

sector side by Kamani, Perera and Wanjigi. 

21.  (C) The Kenyan Government's ability to successfully 

battle corruption touches directly on the legitimacy and 

thus the stability of the Government itself.  Proper 

enforcement of the rule of law is thus central to Kenya's 

political and economic development. Getonga, Perera, 

Kamani, and Wanjigi are at the heart of a return to a 

culture of high-level impunity with respect to mega- 

corruption and the rule of law.  Such a culture will 

maintain a brake on Kenya's efforts at democratic 

development, enabling corrupt politicians to retain their 

offices and sending a clear message to the next political 

generation that corruption and cronyism are the best tools 

for career advancement.  Because the Government 

(specifically President Kibaki) has not demonstrated the 

political will to take action against those accused of 

corruption, international donor countries working closely 

with Kenyan reformers must use whatever tools are at our 

disposal to discourage negative behavior. 

22. (U) The costs of corruption have a direct macro- 

economic impact on Kenya's development.  The $700 million 

at stake in the subset of corrupt deals investigated by 

Githongo alone far exceeds annual donor assistance flows to 

Kenya, a country which recently asked the international 

community for $230 million in emergency food aid and in 

which 56% of the population lives on a dollar a day or 

less.  Corruption is also a major impediment to greater 

domestic and foreign investment in the Kenyan economy. 

With little expectation of a level playing field in bidding 

for public sector contracts, and without a firm basis in 

the rule of law, legitimate investors remain hesitant to 

commit large amounts of capital.  A recent, credible study 

of Kenya's investment climate found that corruption, i.e., 

the need to pay officials when bidding for projects and/or 

obtaining permits, adds 6% to business costs in Kenya. 

23. (C) Kenya has suffered multiple mass casualty al Qaeda 

terrorist attacks in recent years and active al Qaeda 

plotting here continues apace.  The continuation of high- 

level corruption sends the signal that the GOK, and 

particularly the security sector, can be bought.  For 

years, members of the Kenya Police Service were among the 

most commonly cited perpetrators of graft.  This lack of 

adherence to the rule of law may have contributed to the 

enabling environment for the successful terrorist attacks 

of 1998 and 2002.  The Kenyan Police continue to be cited 

as the most corrupt institution in public opinion surveys 

on corruption.  Getonga and others, growing wealthy while 

running the nation, set the poorest possible example for a 

police force severely damaged by years of corruption.  That 

the secretive security sector was singled out for corrupt 

exploitation is particularly pernicious.  Indeed, in the 

Githongo dossier, other accomplices are quoted as saying 

that they "took advantage of American terrorism-related 

fears to expand what was a small project into a cash cow." 

COMMENT: MAKING A DIFFERENCE 

---------------------------- 

24.  (C) In any discussion with Kenyans concerned about 

corruption in their country, there is consistent and 

vehement support for U.S. and other third-country actions 

to revoke visas of corrupt officials and businessmen.  The 

prohibition makes a difference, both as a deterrent and as 

a punishment.  Press speculation that David Mwiraria 

resigned from his post as Finance Minister on February 1 to 

avoid the possible embarrassment of a visa ban that would 

have prevented him from visiting Washington on official 

business is probably an exaggeration.  But it illustrates 

the reality that U.S. visa revocations are a powerful anti- 

graft tool in Kenya. 

25.  (C) In this vein, in a meeting on February 18, KACC 

Director Aaron Ringera urged a small group of Western 

diplomats to take visa action against corrupt individuals, 

including, he emphasized, private sector actors.  He then 

specifically raised the four individuals who are the 

subject of this cable, without any knowledge that Post was 

already considering this request to Washington.  While we 

believe we have chosen the right individuals at this 

moment, Post will likely request additional 212(f) visa 

revocation actions as more information on Anglo-Leasing- 

style corruption scandals come to light in Kenya. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION REQUIRED FOR FINDING 

------------------------------------------- 

26. (C) Getonga, Perera, Kamani and Wanjigi have not been 

informed by post of the fact that Presidential Proclamation 

7750, under Section 212 (F) of the INA, may apply to them. 

Given the front-page news coverage of former Minister 

Nicholas Biwott's (the previous Kenyan government's 

corruption counterpart) and former Minister Christopher 

Murungaru's refusals and repeated public calls now for 

similar actions to be taken against other corrupt officials 

here -- it is extremely doubtful that any of them are 

unaware of the possible ineligibility. 

27. (C) Deepak Kamani (DPOB:03-07-53, Kenya) currently has 

a valid B1/B2 visa, which expires on July 29, 2006.  He is 

believed to have fled Kenya in recent weeks, and may pose a 

flight risk to the U.S.  Alfred Getonga (DPOB: 01-08-63, 

Kenya) currently has a valid B1/B2 visa, which expires on 

May 24, 2006. Jimmy Wanjigi (DPOB: 01-09-57, Kenya) does 

not have a currently valid U.S. visa.  He received an A2 

visa in 2003 when he participated in a trip to the U.S. by 

former President Moi, but that visa has since expired. 

Anura Perera's background remains shrouded in mystery, and 

Post will send additional background information when it 

becomes available from other diplomatic sources and/or the 

KACC.  There is no visa information available on the 

Consular Consolidated Database for anybody by this name. 

ACTION REQUEST 

-------------- 

28. (S) ACTION REQUEST: Because of the serious and far- 

reaching nature of their corrupt activities, Post 

recommends that Alfred Getonga, Anura Perera, Deepak 

Kamani, and Joseph Wanjigi be found ineligible under 

Presidential Proclamation 7750 for travel to the U.S. and 

that no exception be granted. Please advise ASAP. 

Bellamy 

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