Britain Attacks 'Gluttony'
Of Kenyan
Leaders
By Jeevan
Vasagar
7-15-4
- NAIROBI -- The British
high commissioner to Kenya has launched a remarkably frank attack on the
country's new government, accusing it of arrogance, greed and a gluttony
that caused it to "vomit all over our shoes".
-
- Sir Edward Clay warned that Kenya risked losing
foreign aid because of the "new corruption" under the president, Mwai
Kibaki, who launched a crusade to clean up public life when he ousted
the corrupt government of Daniel Arap Moi 18 months ago.
-
- "We never expected corruption to be vanquished
overnight," Sir Edward told a gathering of businesses in Nairobi. "We
all implicitly recognised that some would be carried over to the new
era. We hoped it would not be rammed in our faces.
-
- "Evidently the practitioners now in government have
the arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic to lead them
to eat like gluttons. They may expect we shall not see, or notice, or
will forgive them a bit of gluttony because they profess to like Oxfam
lunches. But they can hardly expect us not to care when their gluttony
causes them to vomit all over our shoes."
-
- His remarks, at a private lunch, were published in the
East African Standard yesterday. He claimed that corruption under
President Kibaki's government was costing Kenya $188m (�105m) and said
efforts to end the culture of bribery were being hampered by so many
government figures being "on the take".
-
- Last night Sir Edward had reportedly been summoned to
Kenya's foreign ministry.
-
- When President Kibaki's coalition won the December
2002 elections, foreign donors welcomed his pledge to clamp down on
sleaze and resumed lending late last year. But in May John Githongo, a
senior Kenyan investigator, said corruption was returning.
-
- Sir Edward said corruption had spread throughout
Kenyan society. "There must be few and fortunate Kenyans who do not
believe that exploiting a relationship, or proffering kitu kidogo [a
little something] or having some illegitimate inside track, is
absolutely essential to getting some ordinary public service."
-
- One unfolding scandal has concerned the planned �20m
passport equipment system. Already four senior civil servants have been
suspended after the government's find of "serious
irregularities".
-
- Sir Edward criticised Anglo Leasing & Finance,
which was to have financed the passport deal. "It is a shadowy company
with links to an address in Liverpool, with links to Kenyans, not
registered in either Britain or Switzerland, incapable of commissioning
a garden shed, discovered never to have delivered anything more than
drawings more or less on the back of an envelope, and hot air." It was
now unlikely that donors would chip in to aid Kenya's
development.
-
- Amos Kimunya, a government minister, admitted his
coalition had inherited "a few bad apples". He said: "We're not going to
say that now...abracadabra...we're clean. There are still some who will
be dipping into the kitty. But when we discover them what do we do with
them?"
-
- Anglo Leasing's managing director, Michel Gruring,
denied wrongdoing. "My company has in no way defrauded your government,"
he said in a letter to Kenya's government made public yesterday.
-
- Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,12689,1261631,00.html
|
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With
Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in
anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans
l'anarchie"
|
