DPP Noordin Haji has today during the National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations declined to reveal his net worth saying that at some pointit will pose a Security threat causing confusion during the vetting.
When he was tasked by the Chairman Nelson Koech to table his wealth for the purposes of record, the DPP instead requested to be allowed to present a summation of his financial income to just the committee in the absence of the cameras.
“I’m being guided by the Legal Counsel that you need to say your future source of income on record,”Hon. Koech, who is the Belgut Member of Parliament noted.
Haji responded: “Honourable Chair, I was going to request, considering the sensitivity of the office that I’m going to hold, that I give this to the committee…it might be a national security issue at some point.”
KinaKinangop Hon.Thuku Kwenya further took the DPP to task over a specific section of his response, which he took to imply that Haji was certain of cruising through the vetting process and assuming office as the new NIS boss.
“I’ve heard the nominee say ‘the office that I’m going to hold’…it’s as if you’re done with our business and therefore we should just show up and go,” stated Kwenya.
Haji said: “Sorry, maybe it is just an oversight, if you allow me (to hold the office). I apologise if that is how it came out.”
Wealth declaration is anchored by the Public Officer Ethics Act, 2003, which states that every public officer must make financial declarations of incomes, assets and liabilities.
Further, Haji was tasked to explain why his office withdrew multiple cases implicating senior government officials.
He noted that his office was guided by the Constitution which dictated that the ODPP ought to withdraw a case if the evidence is wanting or an abuse of the process of acquiring the evidence.
In a statement, Haji returns to the National Intelligence Service after a six-year sojourn as the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The statement further reads that Before becoming the nation’s apex public prosecutor, Haji served as the Deputy Director of the Counter Organised Crime Unit within the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Nordin says.” I do not regret withdrawing prominent graft cases”
The DPP will assume the office if the committee guarantees him power or passes the vetting by presenting the report and his name forwarded to the speaker of the national assembly and the decision read on the floor of the Member.
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