Did Judiciary lie about Elgon Place safety?

The Elgon Place building in Nairobi’s Upper Hill area.

By MWANIKI MUNUHE  and FAITH RONOH

Kenya: Controversy surrounding the Judiciary could escalate after it emerged that it could have relied on a fabricated report to caution Court of Appeal judges from moving to the ultra-modern court premises at the Elgon Place building.

The Standard on Saturday has exclusively obtained details showing how the report could have been used as a cover-up to evade transparency and accountability.

Indeed, one of the lead experts quoted to have played a key role in the preparation of the report has since denied ever having been involved in any way in developing the said expert opinion

Gakuru Mucemi Kanyugo, who is quoted in the report to have been the lead electromagnetic compatibility expert, did not even know whether the Judiciary had commissioned such a study. “I did not give such an opinion. For me to give an opinion, there are certain things that I would have needed to do, which of course I did not do as nobody requested me to. I am surprised that they did not expunge my name from the report. Obviously, it was unprofessional to use my CV the way it was done, it is unscrupulous and unprofessional,” he said.

Even more surprising is that Mucemi received a call from an individual who introduced himself as Kaikai from the office of Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.

“I was not involved in the report – I told the Judiciary the same through Kaikai. Kaikai called me and said he was from the CJ’s office. The opinion must be evaluated on its own merit and not the purported authors,” he said

The premises had been cleared by the Communications Commission of Kenya to be safe for occupation, but Court of Appeal judges declined to move in on the strength of the said expert opinion.

Surprisingly, we have established that the Supreme Court Judges have resolved to move to the same Elgon Place premises, a move that raises questions about the reasons advanced by the appellate judges.

Radiation fears

In a recent meeting, the Supreme Court is said to have resolved to move to the building: “The registrar to prepare and present to the chief registrar the budget for the cost of moving the Supreme Court to another premise until such time when the exercise of refurbishing the Supreme Court Building will be completed. It was estimated that the process might take between 12 to 24 months. The court should move to the new premises during the Easter Vacation. The Court was open to moving to the Elgon Place.”

“Some of the Supreme Court judges do not even have their own washrooms. They have had to share washrooms with members of the public,” said another source.

The controversial expert opinion, a copy of which we obtained, concluded that the Elgon Premise was not safe for occupation. “The Court of Appeal building should not be occupied until a comprehensive assessment has been undertaken to establish the radiation levels of cumulative non-ionizing at various selected points/offices due to the presence of such huge number of antennas installed on masts/ towers next to it… it is evident that CCK, being the institution with the understanding of the radio frequency radiation in Kenya, failed to advice Judiciary accurately,” reads part of the expert opinion report.

Terms of reference for another survey have already been drawn jointly by CCK, NEMA and Radiation Protection Board of Kenya.

The Judiciary has been paying rent for Elgon Place on quarterly basis since April last year. The lease for the property provides quarterly payments with Sh17.5 million being the amount payable for every quarter. Another Sh188 million was used to partition the building.

The new courtrooms at the Elgon Place are fitted with modern technology that allows all cases to be video recorded for the record. The system can show the daily performance of all judges. This, we have established, is part of the wider reasons why the Court of Appeal judges are uncomfortable moving to the new courtrooms.

Meanwhile, it has  emerged that the Judiciary has purchased at least 16 Toyota Land Cruiser vehicles using money allocated for the purchase of a building meant to house courtrooms.

It is understood that the National Treasury is yet to grant approval for payment and the Judiciary is thus unable to effect payment to the supplier. Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich and his Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge did not respond to text messages or phone calls made to them on this matter.

Reduced allowances

“If it is indeed true that the cars were purchased with finances taken from another vote, then I can assure you the chief registrar will have to appear before our committee to explain this. We will keenly check their budget for 2014/2015 estimates,” said Mutava Musiymi, the chair of Parliamentary Budget Committee.

Officials at the Judiciary had promised to respond to these allegations but no response had been sent by the time of going to press.

Similarly, the Judicial Service Commission is embroiled in a tussle with the Salaries and Remunerations Commission over allowances payable to commissioners.  SRC, in its communication to JSC, reduced allowances for commissioners from Sh80,000 per meeting to Sh20,000. This directive is yet to be implemented. SRC has also reduced the number of meetings JSC can hold to a maximum of eight per month.