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Anyona: Mageto now says he will boycott funeral plans

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Published on Saturday, 02 June 2007 08:16

Plans to bury former Kitutu Masaba MP George Anyona took a new twist yesterday when his brother, Mr Stephenson Mageto, said he would not take part in the funeral arrangements. Mageto dissociated himself from plans to inter Anyona’s remains on June 13, because "the whereabouts of the controversial money is not yet established".

"I have tried my best to represent the wishes of Anyona and I do not want to be cursed for doing what he exactly wanted about the money," Mageto stated. He charged that his late brother was angry over accusations levelled against him over the Sh2.3 million and would have wished to be buried after those who had embezzled the funds are punished and the money paid back.

"Enough is enough. I have said enough about my beloved brother while trying to represent him and I do not want to be cursed by anybody for not doing exactly that," Mageto said. He was speaking in Kisii in the company of his sister, Nyaboke. Mageto played a recorded audio tape in which Anyona was addressing his constituents over the controversial funds in his last day’s of Kitutu Masaba politics.

In the seven-minute tape, Anyona says he was clean over the money, which he put at about Sh1.3 million the last time he checked the bank account statement. Anyona also indicated that he had wanted to be taken back to Kamiti Maximum Prison if it was found that he had embezzled the money belonging to Chabumba Women Group.

"If it can be established from bank account number 104-006-387 that I ate the money, I am ready to be taken to prison where I would even personally walk to," Anyona’s voice in the tape states. Anyona had said those who would be found to have misused the money should be dealt with firmly. He emphasised in the recorded tape that the money was safe at a National Bank of Kenya account.
When asked for his reaction about an announcement by Nyamira DC Jamleck Baruga that the family had agreed to bury Anyona on June 13, he shook his head and remained quiet. The journalists pressed on and Mageto retorted; "I have no more to say about Anyona but I still stick to the fact that I have represented his wishes properly upto this moment but I do not want to be cursed by people going the other way round.

However, a family member later indicated that there were no discussions between them and the DC on the date of burial. He said the DC was lying "big" when he alleged that Anyona’s widow was living in a shanty at Mosocho village in Kisii as reported in the Press yesterday. Anyona died last November in a road accident and his body has been lying at the Nyangena Hospital in Kisii after Mageto sought orders barring his burial.

As the woman hammers away at the huge stone, breaking it into small pieces, her one-year-old son coos happily nearby. He seems to be enjoying the cool weather. The baby's mother is one of the many women who have been forced by circumstances to venture into a trade hitherto considered the preserve of men.