Kibaki tightens reigns
2005-02-15 12:03
Nairobi - Under mounting international pressure to prove he is serious about fighting corruption, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Monday demoted a scandal-tainted minister and fired one of the official's senior managers.
Kibaki transferred Chris Murungaru from the national security portfolio where he had direct access to the president, to the transport ministry, and sacked Dave Mwangi, the permanent secretary in Murunguru's department, the presidential press service said.
Murungaru was replaced with John Michuki, a former transport minister, the service said in a statement, which also announced less drastic changes at the cabinet level and below.
"The changes are aimed at improving government service delivery, accountability and efficiency," it said, adding that Kibaki had renewed warnings to all public servants against violating anti-graft regulations.
Government denounced
"Accounting officers must ensure that the existing regulations are followed strictly in order to stamp out corruption from government," the statement said.
Last month, a Kenyan newspaper implicated Murungaru and a top aide to Kibaki, among other officials, in an alleged corruption network and the minister was involved in a short-lived attempt to prosecute the journalist who wrote the story under a little-used criminal libel law.
The case was dropped amid heavy international pressure and complaints from Kenya's main foreign donors that Kibaki's government was attempting to cover up graft.
But two weeks later, international criticism surged anew when British High Commissioner to Kenya, Edward Clay, said Kibaki had failed to prevent "massive looting" of public funds and pointed out 20 suspect deals that needed to be probed.
Some of those deals came under Murungaru's purview.
Meanwhile Canada on Monday joined other leading donors in denouncing the Kibaki's government for inaction on corruption and suggested that official vows to fight graft could no longer be believed.
"I happen to believe that corruption is at the root of almost all serious problems Kenya faces," Canadian High Commissioner to Kenya, Jim Wall, said in an address to students at a workshop on investigative journalism here.
Wall said he had "seen almost no meaningful action" taken against corruption by President Mwai Kibaki's government and that promises do so were becoming harder to accept.
"That rhetoric is no longer meaningful when balanced against the evidence that there are scams and preferences and coverups and that the war is being lost," he said.
On Friday, Kibaki had fervently defended his determination to eradicate corruption a day after he forwarded a review of security procurement services to the government anti-graft commission. - AFP
- SAPA