Transport Chief Administrative Secretary CAS Chris Obure has dragged Amani National Congress ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi into the Sh 1.3 billion Anglo-Leasing graft scandal.
Mr Obure testified that Mr Mudavadi was involved in one of the Anglo leasing projects linked to procurement of equipment for the Postal Corporation of Kenya PCK. He said that he wrote to Mr Mudavadi on May 9, 2002, seeking direct procurement of equipment for upgrading postal services in the country.
Mudavadi informed senior principal magistrate Anne Mwangi that it was the government's intention to develop and upgrade the Postal Corporation of Kenya PCK.
At the time, Mr Mudavadi, a presidential hopeful in 2022, was the vice president and Minister of Transport and Communication, while Mr Obure was finance minister under President Daniel Moi.
The case relates to one of the Anglo Leasing scandals in which 18 high-value government security contracts were allegedly awarded to fictitious companies, leading to the loss of billions of shillings of public funds.
Businessman Deepak Kamani and several former government officials are facing a trial over the scandal that came to light in April 2004.
The equipment was named VSAT hardware, computer servers, software licenses, and other communication services.
Mr Obure said that Mr Mudavadi sought his permission to use direct procumbent of the equipment from the US company to supply the equipment needed to connect more than 900 post offices in Kenya.
The letter informed Mr Obure that the upgrading of the postal services would ease the payment of teachers, postal staff and other civil servants at the grassroots.
While denying that he abused the powers of his then Cabinet Minister for Finance, Mr Obure said he believed Mr Mudavadi when he told him that the government had embarked on a program to upgrade postal services in the country.
The former vice president told the trial magistrates that the postal services would be improved through a broadband network that connects every post office in the county to each other.
Mudavadi asked him to give him assistant in achieving the government's intentions.
The transfer of payment for teachers and other government entities would be eased once the technology was put in place, said Obure. The project was going to last for 10 years.
He added that Mudavadi's request to have him approve the direct procurement in the single-sourced service was necessitated by the fact that the ministry of finance was the financier.