Former Sports Cabinet Secretary Rashid Echesa is no longer new to controversies! Or is he?
Well, after his arrest on Thursday, details have emerged of how the former ODM party youth leader used the office of Deputy President Dr William Ruto and Defence Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma’s signature to strike a multi-billion fraudulent deal.
According to The Standard, Echesa is said to have used the Office of the Deputy President and the signature of the Defence Cabinet Secretary to cut the fraudulent multi-billion-shilling deal to supply military surveillance equipment and guns.
The complainant, who is an American based in Poland, told the police Echesa approached them through e-mail, introducing himself as a Kenyan politician who would hook them up with a lucrative Sh39.5 billion tender.
The complainant said Echesa summoned the directors of the company into the country and had a meeting at a Nairobi hotel in the presence of people dressed in military uniforms, one of them introducing himself to the investors as a general who would be the user of the military equipment to be supplied to the Department of Defence.
The directors then arranged a trip for Echesa and three others to Poland, the headquarters of the company to inspect the surveillance equipment.
It is here that he said he would receive Sh52 million upon the signing of the contract after allegedly approving the standards of the equipment.
The victims told the police that they were on Thursday shocked to establish the man who identified himself as a military general was dressed in a suit this time round.
They also said they never got to meet the Deputy President despite Echesa promising that the contract would be signed in his presence.
What baffled investigators is that the fictitious tender document found both in the Office of the Deputy President and in Echesa’s car, bore the signature of CS Juma, among other senior ministry officials.
Forensic investigations on the signatures have been launched as part of the probe.