Wednesday, February 01, 2006

HOUSE BEGINS TO FALL

Kenya's finance minister, David Mwiraria announcing his resignation
KENYA'S FINANCE MINISTER RESIGNS!

The monstrous 'Anglo-leasing graft scandal' has claimed Kenya's Finance Minister who resigned yesterday. It's widely expected that the Vice President and Energy Minister would follow suit. If not, we expect the president to fire them!

Excerpts from the 'Daily NATION'

Kenya's Finance minister David Mwiraria resigned yesterday, as the media continued to focus on Anglo Leasing type corruption at the heart of Government.
Mr Mwiraria quit after meeting the President in the morning.
He told his key aides at the Treasury Building of his decision to go, then called a Press conference to make it public.
Finance minister David Mwiraria announces his resignation from the Cabinet at a press conference in Nairobi yesterday. The minister – one of the President's key allies – announced his resignation at exactly 3.17pm in his former boardroom on the 14th floor of Treasury Building, Nairobi.
Mr Mwiraria, 67, was the second Cabinet victim of the Anglo Leasing affair, following the President's refusal to reappoint former Internal Security minister Chris Murungaru to the Cabinet after a shake-up late last year.
And observers believed last night that more resignations could be on the way.
For even as the Finance chief stepped down, question marks hung over the immediate future of two other senior members of Mr Kibaki's inner circle: Vice-President Moody Awori and Energy minister Kiraitu Murungi.
Like Mr Mwiraria, both were called to State House for talks with the President – on Monday evening and yesterday morning – and it is understood all three were invited to hand in their resignations.
Also present at the crisis talks was Mr Stanley Murage, a permanent secretary, who is Mr Kibaki's financial and economics adviser.
It is understood the President has become increasingly concerned about the effect of the Anglo Leasing affair on his Government's credibility, heightened by the public announcement by the World Bank that they had withheld Sh19 billion in aid because of the scandal, and the possibility that other major donors would follow suit.
All three ministers were named in the report to the President on Anglo Leasing and similar deals by former Ethics permanent secretary John Githongo.
Mr Awori has already been questioned by detectives from the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) over the Sh2.7 billion Anglo Leasing passports scandal, and Mr Murungi has been named several times in reports alleging attempts to cover up that and other similar deals.


For more on the story click on: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=2&newsid=66386