John Githongo

John Githongo (born 1965) is a former Kenyan journalist who investigated bribery and fraud in his home country (Kenya) and later, under the presidency of Mwai Kibaki, took on an official governmental position to fight corruption.

In the Anglo-leasing corruption which he blew the lid over, fraudulent deliveries of government military and forensic laboratory equipment were allegedly ordered, "delivered" and the payment completed in the former president Uhuru Kenyatta's tenure.

[3] In this role he wrote extensively for the Nairobi-based EastAfrican and Executive magazine, attacking corruption throughout Kenyan society under the Moi regime.

In January 2003 he was appointed to the position of Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics by the incoming president Kibaki, who had been elected on an anti-corruption platform.

He resigned from his position on 7 February 2005[5] without comment, though it was reported that he felt the government lacked commitment to ending corruption and that he had received death threats, a common occurrence in Kenyan public office holding.

In an interview with Fergal Keane for the BBC's Newsnight programme on 8 February 2006, Githongo revealed what he claims is taped evidence proving that Kiraitu Murungi attempted to impede his inquiries.

[9][10] Murungi suggested that a 30M Kenyan Shilling loan to his father by a lawyer A.H. Malik had been bought by Anura Pereira, and might be forgiven in exchange for 'going slow' on the Anglo Leasing investigation.

He reveals that at the end of his investigations, he came to the inescapable conclusion that the Anglo Leasing scandal went all the way to the top, and as a consequence his life was in danger.

Anglo Leasing, and many other similar deals, were rumoured by some people to be back-door financing to pay for NARC's election bid in 2007.

[11] Throughout the saga allegations about the sophisticated nature of the Githongo recordings and the reason and extent for the involvement of the British Embassy have been subject to rife speculation.

He is a board member of Kabissa,[13] an organisation that serves the networking, information sharing and ICT peer learning needs of African Civil Society.