Kirinyaga Governor Ann Waiguru speaks out on NYS scam

DP William Ruto with Kirinyaga Governor Ann Waiguru during a meeting with Kirinyaga County MCAs at his Karen office in Nairobi. [File, Standard]

Kirinyaga Governor Ann Waiguru has described Deputy President William Ruto as an intelligent man in the world of politics.

In an interview on Citizen TV, Waiguru defended his relationship with DP Ruto terming it as a professional and a cordial one.

"He knows how to make assessment in regards to politics and I think am not particularly experienced in politics but I want to imagine he knows what he is doing," she said.

Going back to the height of the NYS scandal when Ruto disparagingly linked Waiguru to the scam and told her to own up instead of “Kizungu mingi”, Waiguru told her interviewer, Jeff Koinange, the Deputy President didn’t have to apologise to her. Jeff had asked her whether they had “kissed and made up”.

The interview comes a week after a damning research findings that ranked Waiguru and Ruto as most corrupt leaders at 31 percent and 33 percent respectively.

The duo however dismissed the IPSOS Synovate report saying it was sponsored by their political rivals to tarnish their names before the 2022 elections.

Ruto's spokesman and Director of Communications at his office David Mugonyi said the results were political schemes and were paid by DP's political detractors who want to destroy his political carrier.

"The so-called survey used data that is too politically correlated to be meaningful. At a time when people are so desperate that they want to amend the Constitution to bar the DP from running for the presidency, it should not shock anyone that a survey like this would be concocted," he added.

Governor Ann Waiguru also questioned the credibility of the polls saying she had never been charged in a court of law for loss of public funds.

In yesterday's interview, Waiguru asked Ipsos to present the results in a court of law if they thought she was corrupt. She also wondered how the measures were taken.

"I want you to tell me how you measured this. By what factor? Are you measuring it terms of liters?  Is it by the amount of money have stolen? Who has the facts of the amount of money have stolen?" she further asked.

She also defended her alleged involvement in the NYS scandal where Sh871 million was lost dismissing the whole thing as rumour-based.

"I naively believe that justice will be found in the courts and I have a naive trust in our institutions; I believe that many people in those institutions want to do good and if they are doing what they can, they will release the report and I will be exonerated," she said.

Asked if she thought Kenya was ready for a female deputy president, Waiguru said yes adding that there were women who were qualified to run for even presidency in the country.