From Wikileaks

Daily Nation: Speed On Graft War - State Is Criticised

Link

http://www.marsgroupkenya.org/pages/stories/looting_Kenya/index.php

Country

Kenya

Date

Tuesday September 11, 2007

Source

The looting of Kenya

By

Dinah Ondari

CIVIL society organisations have censured the Government over the slow pace 'of the war on corruption. The organisations also criticised the Ninth Parliament, accusing it of misuse of public funds under the guise of salaries and allowances.

About 20 organisations under the aegis of the name and Shame Corruption Network (NASCON), claimed the Government was using legal loopholes to protect people who has mismanaged public funds. They in particular took issue with the Limitations of Actions Act which bars the Kenya Anti- Corruption Commission (KACC) from investigating corruption cases, six years after they were committed.

"This law grants blanket amnesty to perpetrators of economic crimes committed before 2003 including Goldenberg, the saga of the collapsed Kenya National Assurance Company Limited, the All Africa Games rif-off and other alleged scandals involving land grabbing documented in the Ndung'u report. NASCON also questioned why the Government had not acted on the Kroll and Associates report which contains serious allegations of money laundering to the tune of Shs130 million. organisation now say the government could be involved in a cover up scheme of the report that names former president Daniel Moi' s family as the major mover of the scandal, to gain political mileage.

"It is not lost to Kenyans that President Kibaki appointed the former president as an ambassador while a Kroll and Associates report prepared and received by the Kenyan Government in 2004 implicates Moi in the alleged theft of Shs 130 million," they said in a press statement. Speaking at a press conference at a Nairobi hotel, the civil society representatives said it was not a coincidence that recently, Moi endorsed the incumbent's campaign for a second term in office.

The organisations were angered by last weeks' move by Parliament to pass a clause in the statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendment) Bill 2007 which allows each of the 210 MPs to get Shs 1.5 million as gratuity. By passing the clause, MPs awarded themselves over Shs 300,000 farewell packages for every year worked, backdated to January 2003 when they first took the oath of office.

But NASCON yesterday termed the Ninth Parliament as being a greedy lot that did not deserve the send-off perks while the rest of the country languishes in poverty. The organisations said they had made plans to recover all the money awarded to MPs in salaries and allowances since 2003 through court action.