I’m like an appellate judge, says defensive Kajwang’

By Martin Mutua

Immigration and Registration of Persons minister Otieno Kajwang’ denied any wrongdoing in arbitrarily allowing foreigners into the country.

“I am like an appellate judge with discretion to supreme ministerial decisions,” the minister said on Thursday, explaining that, according to the law, those aggrieved by his officers’ decisions were free to appeal to him and he would make the final decision.

He said he had discretion to either accept or disagree with advice from his technical staff in matters of issuance of work permits.

Kajwang’ was speaking at a news conference in response to a story carried in The Standard on Thursday, which detailed how he had ignored advice from his senior ministry staff and issued work permits to certain foreigners.

On Thursday, we reported that against the advice of his PS, Mr Emmanuel Kisombe, and Director of Immigration Service (DIS), Mr Joseph Ndathi, the minister gave passage to eight members of the controversial Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints.

But Kajwang’ blamed corruption cartels, which he claimed have been thriving at his ministry, and were now fighting back. He vowed to deal with the cartels, saying they had soiled his ministry’s name.

Corrupt cartels

“I will break the corruption cartels that have made Kenyans believe that one has to part with money to be served in this ministry. That will not happen as long as I am here,” he said.

Kajwang’ said he has a soft spot for “people who pray” and that he dealt with the application openly.

“I was persuaded by the application because the applicants had no criminal record and neither did they have any bad record. Secondly, they are people who were coming in to help with development projects, that is why I disagreed with my staff,” he said.

He said the law was clear in that any person aggrieved by the decisions taken by his staff was free to appeal to him and his decision was final.

The minister said if the church leaders later turned out to be terrorists or thieves that would be dealt with by another arm of the Government.

Courtesy of:http://eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1143990001&cid=4&j=2008&m=7&d=11