ODM leader Raila Odinga. [Photo/ Buzzkenya.com]
NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga is embarrassed by a revelation that cartels allied to his coalition were behind the creation of the recently launched manifesto. Earlier, technocrats at the NASA presidential secretariat had worked on what they thought was the final document, only to realize on Tuesday, hours before officially releasing the manifesto, that cartels had created a parallel document -- which was later embraced as complimentary. Both manifestos are on NASA’s website, confusing supporters, who have been saying Raila will take on cartels in government on day 1 in office. The manifesto by cartels, some of who have been involved in past corruption dealings — such as the Goldenberg Scandal — is full of grammatical mistakes and details development projects, most of which have been done by the Jubilee administration. Deputy President William Ruto has poked holes into the NASA manifesto, saying the cartels took control of it and listed projects from which to make money should Raila win next month. “They have told us about the road from Garissa to Mandera. We have done 70% of that,” DP Ruto said during an interview at Citizen TV. “ “They have told that they are going to have a debt management directory at the Treasury. For your information… a debt management directorate exists today, with a director,” Ruto said. The DP wondered why NASA was planning to digitize government when today, there are more than 30 government services through e-citizen. A source familiar with the scandal told the Star that cartels were keen to have capital intensity projects in the NASA manifesto, which they will later implement by winning tenders in a Raila administration. That is why, Jubilee leaders, say the cartels are spending billions to finance the NASA campaign. “The key concern was that some people are creating projects for themselves to implement with an imminent Raila victory,” the unnamed source told the Star. “We have become a stakeholder society. So people call themselves stakeholders. Even tenderpreneurs are in there. In fact, they are there in a big way,” the source revealed. NASA advisor David Ndii has now said the document with projects is not the coalition’s manifesto, confusing supporters even further because the document is still on the campaign’s website. This is likely to damage Raila’s claim that he is going to fight cartels and tenderpreneurs who make money off taxpayers.