By Clifford Akumu
Kenya Human Rights Commission Executive Director George Kegoro has rubbished NGO’s Coordination board action of de-registering the civil society group terming it ‘an attempt to shrink civic space and an act of intimidation .’
Kegoro added that the human rights group will move to court to seek legal redress to the ‘malicious accusation’.
This follows the NGOs Coordination Board de-registering of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) for alleged tax evasion, illegal bank accounts and illegal hiring of expatriates.
NGO coordination Board Executive Director Fazul on Monday said the commission was operating four illegal bank accounts— two at NIC bank and two others at the CBA— contravening the terms and conditions attached to the certificate of registration.
Kegoro told a presser at their Lavingtone office that it was the third attempt by the board all of which were the same to shut the civil society operations.
The commission insisted that they had not received any letter from Mr Fazul, and that he had learnt about the deregistration from the media.
“Fazul Mohamed is the quintessential attention seeker. He has only been banning specific NGO’s.We have on several occasions actually asked the Board’s board to meet us and discuss whatever issues they may have, but they always come up with excuses,” Kegoro said.
Fazul in a letter copied to the KRA, the CBK and the Immigration Department had instructed the latter to immediately deport all foreigners working for KHRC without permits.
In a rejoinder, Kegoro said that the civil society only had expatriates eight years ago with work permits.
“All our workers have their origins from Kenya. We no longer have foreign workers in this organization” he said.
Fazul had stated that the commission’s financial statements do not give a true and fair view of their financial position as of the 4th October 2016 and subsequently, it cannot be ascertained that the1.2 billion received by the organization during the same period is fully accounted for.
“We will be very happy as an organization if we had that kind of money in our possession,” said Kegoro.
He said the allegations made by Mr Mohamed were false and that there had been a Court order asking the board to stop “arbitrary treatment of the commission”.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Activists Maina Kiai has dared the state to go ahead and arrest him following allegations of their intention to petition the just concluded general election.
Kiai said that his team and KHRC had been holding numerous meetings to ascertain whether they could challenge the presidential election results in court.
“I am here, please come and arrest me,” Kiai told the state
Other NGO’s who have been dealt a similar blow include one linked to Rosemary Odinga and the freezing the accounts of Kalonzo Musyoka Foundation.
