With Kimunya in office, President Kibaki’s days are numbered.

E-MAIL THIS

PRINT THIS

MOST POPULAR

PDF VERSION

TXT version

During President Kibaki’s election campaign last year, his PNU slogan was “Kazi iendelee” (Let the work continue). This, was at a backdrop of mega financial scandals that had hit the Kibaki government despite him vowing to root out corruption.

On 27th December 2007, Kenyans went back to to the ballot after 5 years of most felt was Kibaki’s broken promises on curbing graft and tribalism. Kibaki, having lost in 6 out of 8 provinces was declared winner of the presidential vote in circumstances that have yet to be explained to the public.

Four months later, a government coalition was with the help of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan crafted to include perceived Presidential vote winner and leader of ODM party which had garnered most parliamentary seats, Raila Odinga.

What do Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, Corruption chief Justice Ringera and Governor of Central Bank Prof Njoroge Ndung’u have in Common?
All of them were appointed by the president and share President Kibaki’s ethnicity, notwithstanding that both are also the president’s party allies. But they're also the main architects of the Grand Regency Hotel scam that has hit the country. It was during Madaraka Day Celebration on 1st June when the president declared that a minister named in any new scandal will have to resign and pave way for investigations, it’s now time to see if the president, after having talked the talk, can break away from his own not far away past and walk the walk.

Kimunya’s secret sale of Grand Regency Hotel to the Libyan government.
Until Kimunya’s colleague and Minister of Lands James Orengo broke the news about the undervalued sale of the Grand Regency Hotel to Muamar Gaddafi’s government company minister Kimunya denied that anything like this would take place. In fact, the minister categorically said that any sale would be done in according to the law, through public tender announcements. But the hotel sale was never advertised. Now Kimunya claims that everyone knew the hotel was on sale, but as it now turns out, to Kimunya, everybody means himself and a few of his fellow tribesmen.

Minister Kimunya is reported to have said that Kenyans should be clapping for him instead of questioning his motives in clearing the sale of the hotel in which Kenya is poised to lose another 7 billion Shillings, only two years of Anglo Leasing, another scam that left Kibaki’s image totally destroyed both abroad and locally. As finance minister, he can claim that a property which was valued more than 3 billion shillings some ten years ago can be sold at a throw away price, and without consultation, without public bidding and without the concent of Lands minister in who’s docket the property is built, then we should all be asking president Kibaki, where did you get this minister from?

Most Kenyans who’ve followed Kibaki’s presidency closely would agree that the secret sale of the Grand Regency Hotel is in line with Kibaki’s leadership arrogance that is on the edge of falsehood and dictatorship. We saw it with the break up of the very vehicle that propelled him to power when in 2003, he renegaded on coalition promise. We saw it when former president Moi all of a sudden became Kibaki’s ally, despite the despicable economic crimes his regime had manifested. Kenyans still remember how architects of the Goldenberg Scandal including Kamlesh Pattni, who bought the Grand Regency Hotel with public stolen money, was left Scott free. Then came Anglo Leasing scandal where Kibaki’s ministers were again named in diverting public funds in the tune of billions of shillings into ghost projects abroad. Then two years ago, the presence of international drug barons the Arthur brothers that revealed how two Armenian mercenaries were given Kenya passports and Cartes-Blanche in operating their multi billion dollar cartel with government protection. They were also given free access to all security facilities in the country. In the end, when things got too hot, the government did not want the Armenians in court, instead, a quick repartriation was organized for them to avoid justice.

Someone will have to be sacrificed, in order for sanity to take root in our society.
Amos Kimunya’s denial of the shady sale of Grand Regency and eventually admittance is itself just a tip of the iceberg of how Kenya is managed. It also explains why poverty is persistent in more than 80% of the country's families. Kimunya’s conduct must not be allowed to be the norm of governance, rather, he should be stopped before he stops the president from performing national duties without further disruption otherwise Kenya will soon become ungovernable for Kibaki. The alter is waiting for Minister Kimunya or President Kibaki, and one of them has to come clean.