- 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".
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- "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."
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- 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".
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- Last night Sir Edward had reportedly been summoned to
Kenya's foreign ministry.
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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".
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- 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.
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- 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?"
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- 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.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/kenya/story/0,12689,1261631,00.html
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