House team to meet National Intelligence Service chief Michael Gichangi over Westgate Mall attack

By MARTIN MUTUA

KENYA: Details of the security lapse that allowed the attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall will be known Thursday.

The National Assembly Committee on Defence and Foreign Relations will today meet the Director General of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) Michael Gichangi over the attack.

It is understood that Gichangi is stung by the public accusations against NIS whom MPs accused for having failed to stop the attacks in time.

Because he was accused in public, on the floor of the House, the Director General wants to appear at an open session of the committee meeting to reveal what he did prior to the attacks.

Ordinarily, the meetings of the Director General of the NIS are held in camera, but this time, just like it happened when the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, the Director General appears ready to spill the beans and crucify all those government officials who failed to act on the intelligence reports about an imminent attack.

The Chairman of the Defence and Foreign Relations Committee Ndung’u Gethenji (Tetu MP) said the House team had invited the NIS boss to speak about Kenya’s incursion in Somalia and related issues, but that “the Committee can always adopt a new agenda”.

“I have no problem at all. If the Director General wants the meeting to be open, to give information as to what reports they had prior to the Westgate attack, I have no problem. He’s free to do that. But if he has information that is operational in nature, because, this operation is still on-going then, we will make a decision,” Gethenji told The Standard.

The chairman said it would be imprudent to share classified information, moreso, that which has an impact on national security, with the general public.

NIS and the police have been at loggerheads whenever crises occur in the country.