Joy Gwendo, the former TNA nominated Senator will be ‘cooling porridge’ in prison for two and a half years after pleading guilty to a Sh1.7 million fraud and abuse of office charge.
Gwendo was accused of forging a Sh200, 000 cheque, besides using her position as a state official to confer a benefit of Sh2 million. Gwendo entered but failed to honour a plea bargain with the state.
Chief Magistrate Douglas Ogoti found her dishonest and jailed her without the option of a fine for “hoodwinking the court”. Senators earn Sh1 million in monthly wages, meaning Gwendo took home Sh12 million annually.
In five years, the Jubilee Coalition nominee pocketed Sh60 million, without having run a political campaign or representing any constituency. But Gwendo could not raise money to clear the debt for which she was found guilty. For that, she will survive on government poshoat the Lang’ata Women’s Prison in Nairobi.
Just how did a woman who rose from an advertising executive in a local vernacular station to a mheshimiwa end up in jail? Those who know her told The Nairobian that Gwendo drank and danced her way to Lang’ata Women’s Prison.
Her local was 1824, the whisky bar along Lang’ata Road and a staggering distance from her Sh23 million house in Phenom Estate, which she purchased in 2013 using the parliamentary mortgage facility.
Whenever Congolese rhumba musician Ferre Gola’s Kamasutra song was played at 1824, the natural born dancer would take to the dance floor, close her eyes and sway her lakeside hips, the crooner tugging at her heartstrings.
Gwendo was also a regular patron at The Pitstop, also on Lang’ata Road. “Her table was always full of independent women quaffing whiskey. They were a tough bunch. No man could approach their table,” says a man who once fell victim to vicious tongue lashing from Gwendo’s crew after he fancied one of them and offered a drink.
Gwendo loved whiskey and music and it was not uncommon for her to spend lavishly in one sitting.
“I thought it was a bit too much seeing that she drank nearly every day,” reveals a friend who swilled drinks with her at 1824. She loved live Congolese music concerts and tipping musicians handsomely was common for her, besides giving generous tips to waiters to reserve her favourite seat.
Life was good and Joy Adhiambo Gwendo chewed it with a big spoon. Her five-year stint ended in 2017 when she decamped to Kisumu and ran against incumbent Shakeel Shabbir for the Kisumu East parliamentary seat on a Jubilee Party ticket. She came third.
By then, the third-born in a family of five who was brought up in Kibera, had moved from Lang’ata to upmarket Karen in Nairobi. A friend who knows her closely whispered that she decamped from 1824 after losing the election. Out also went her colourful life on Facebook, which before was a gallery of party pictures.
That was replaced by spiritual and inspirational quotes. Her Facebook page was deactivated after her arrest. But her dalliance with financial ruin had started a year after she entered Parliament.
A friend narrated how, in June 2014, when she was just a year old as a mheshimiwa, Gwendo desperately begged friends to loan her cash so she could clear a loan in Parliament to enable her take another loan to finance a trip to watch the 2014 Fifa World Cup finals in Brazil with friends and the man she lived with.
Two years later, things had changed, and not for the better.
On February 20, 2016, she was not ashamed to queue, sandwiched between MCA aspirants, for handouts from an ambassador who was running Jubilee operations in Nyanza after a day-long meeting for Jubilee aspirants in Nyanza.
One friend is full of praises for Gwendo:
“I met her in the line of duty and I saw a tough ambitious woman who could go places. We became good friends and several times, I visited her home in Chiga, met her church colleagues and even her family. They all respect and love her. Had she been in the right party, she would have become the Kisumu East MP.”
Surprisingly, it’s a Sacco from the heart of her village, Kisumu East Cotton Growers Cooperative Society that hit the final nail on the coffin. She is accused of defrauding over Sh2 million on October 23,
2016 from the Sacco, according to her charge sheet. On January 22, 2018, a resigned Gwendo stood before Anti-Corruption Court magistrate Lawrence Mugambi. She had lost weight. Her lipstick was pink and smudged, as if applied in a hurry.
The blond dye on her short hair was fading, like fine dust had settled on it. Her voice was barely audible as she pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud.
Thankfully, a few friends had helped her negotiate for a plea bargain with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The deal required that the former legislator pay the Sacco Sh1.7 million. But a year later, Gwendo had not met her part of the bargain. Just 18 days to Christmas, anti-corruption court chief magistrate Douglas Ogoti jailed her for two and half years.
Gwendo isn’t eligible for parliamentary service pension as she only served on term, and by the last check, sales from her 300page Luo to English and English to Luo dictionary, can’t even fuel her silver grey Toyota Prado.