When President Uhuru Kenyatta announced during the State of the Nation that any senior government official charged with corruption will have to step down, no one took him seriously.
After all, we had been waiting for the President to crack the whip on Treasury CS Henry Rotich, for his role in the the infamous Arror and Kimwarer dams scandal. But let’s not forget that Rotich has not been charged with any crime, as at now.
The President has however cracked the whip on Hassan Wario, he of the famous Rio scandal during the 2016 Olympic games in Brazil.
In October last year, Wario and other former senior officials in the Ministry of sports were charged with making unauthorized payments, over-payment of allowances amounting to over Ksh.15 million and purchasing tickets worth Ksh.22 million which were not used by athletes or officials in the trip that was full of joyriders.
Reports indicated that Wario also paid for venue entrance tickets and meals from an imprest budget for members of Parliament and other government officials, yet they had already been paid their allowances by the National Assembly and respective ministries.
Team Kenya was also subjected to poor training facilities before the games started.
Despite a series of management blunders, Kenya bagged its biggest ever medal haul at the Olympics held in Brazil, winning six gold, six silver and one bronze medals.
It is also during Wario’s time that Kenya embarrassingly failed to host the CHAN tournament in 2018, as CAF opted to move the tournament to Morocco, citing poor preparation.
Until his indictment, Wario was the Kenyan High Commissioner in Austria, a job he has been doing since last year.
We now expect that he will be paying for his crimes at Kamiti Maximum Prisons with his fellow criminals.