The embattled former Chief Registrar of the Judiciary Gladys Boss Shollei is a lady under siege. She could be the second high flying woman to be in the dock after Charity Ngilu.
This follows revelations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission that they have a major breakthrough in the investigations of graft involving a British printing firm which linked Kenyan electoral and examination officials. Shollei was the deputy chief electoral officer at the IIEC when the offence was committed.
But even as Shollei is having sleepless nights, she is yet in another mess after her practicing certificate was recalled for allegedly issuing a bouncing cheque. This now means that she cannot practice law.
And if that is not enough,Shollei dealings while the Chief Registrar including controversial tender awards and payments hang around her neck.
She has been telling her friends that top Jubilee operatives have deserted her at the hour of need. She has even lost considerable body weight. It is as if she has been attending slim symposium classes.
Back to the polls scam, it is now official that Britain has given out critical information that led employees of the implicated British firm sent to jail.
Sources reveal, Kenyans officials behind Chickengate scandal are to be hauled to the courts.
One of the key suspects is Shollei. We have information that she has been knocking almost all doors including top Jubilee operatives from the URP side to have her cases withdrawn to no avail. When Charity Ngilu appeared in court, Shollei left her fate in the hands of God.
Apart from Shollei, EACC detectives are said to be closing in on suspended Energy cabinet secretary Davis Chirchir who was a senior manager at the then IIEC. Chirchir has also been isolated by William Ruto camp.They say he was used to flying choppers to his rural home and is not in touch with common person. One Dr Koskei is being groomed to take over his position.
EACC had applied for the evidence as part of its probe into the saga. The corrupt payments, totalling Sh60 million were made to public officials for business contracts in Kenya and Mauritania.
British firm Smith & Ouzman is alleged to have paid out bribes amounting to Sh50m to officials of the defunct Interim Independent Electoral Commission, the predecessor of IEBC, as well as to officials of the Kenya National Examination Council in order to be awarded several contracts worth billions of shillings for printing of ballot papers and examinations materials.
Recently, Shollei moved to court to stop the anti-graft agency from arresting her. She fears, EACC any time wants to prefer charges against her in order to publicly harass, humiliate and disparage her in violation of her rights.
She has confided in her close friends how she has been subjected to untold mental and psychological torture after she was dismissed as Chief Registrar of the Judiciary in October 2013 after a myriad of allegations.
Some of the allegations against Shollei is that she attempted to interfere with a fraud case involving Ruto and that she attempted to intervene for Ruto with the aim of securing a favourable ruling while incharge of running of the courts.
There are also claims that she claimed Sh54,000 in daily sitting allowance amounting to Sh2.5m for participating in interviews of High Court judges for which she is said not to have been present.
It is also alleged that she claimed a total of Sh580,000 from the Judiciary as per diem for seven days for a trip to The Hague though she had not travelled there.
Also hanging around her neck is the alleged purchase of Sh500,000 worth of smartphones for Judiciary and the employment of Shollei’s former colleagues at the electoral commission and the National Council for Law Reporting, some of whom earn more than High Court judges and enjoy big perks.
She is also in trouble in the manner in which the Judiciary procured a Sh310 million house for the chief justice, the construction of prefabricated magistrates courts at Sh1.2 billion and the contracts awarded to a company associated with a judge. She is further accused of trying to buy a building for Sh900 million without the knowledge of the JSC.
For now Shollei has worked out on mechanism of paying the bond once charged. Elsewhere, word has it, Isaak Hassan the IEBC boss is not off the hook. The idea is to work on who will be in-charge once he faces criminal charges. The government’s fear is that if Hassan is unceremoniously removed, a constitutional crisis is bound to arise at the sensitive independent body. State legal advisers are busy burning the midnight oil as they work on how he can be removed.
To compound matters are opposition threats to boycott if he is in charge. Jubilee strategists want to use to scam to remove him.
