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Kenyan Leader Vows to Press on With Crackdown on Corruption

Kenyan President Vows to Press On With Crackdown on Corruption

(Bloomberg) -- Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said his government will continue a crackdown on corruption that has brought some of his most senior ministers into investigators’ sights.

The authorities are intensifying their efforts to curb graft, which Kenyatta has described as a threat to national security, to make more funds available for the president’s so-called Big Four agenda -- a plan to boost manufacturing and farm output, as well as access to housing and healthcare. That’s as the government struggles to contain borrowing in line with International Monetary Fund recommendations.

So far the authorities have questioned four cabinet ministers, including Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich, as part of a probe into dam-construction projects in which the public prosecutor suspects government funds were misappropriated. On Tuesday, detectives arrested Samburu county Governor Moses Lenolkulal in connection with alleged conflict of interest, the third detention of a county chief by the country’s anti-graft agency.

“There will be no turning back on the war against corruption,” Kenyatta said Thursday in a state-of-the-nation address in the capital, Nairobi. But while there is pressure to dismiss officials suspected for graft, investigations and trials will be done within the law, Kenyatta said.

The anti-graft campaign has caused divisions within the ruling Jubilee Party, with lawmakers allied to Deputy President William Ruto accusing his opponents of linking him to some scandals to try and undermine his ambition to succeed Kenyatta in 2022.

READ: Kenya Graft Fight Takes Aim at County Governors With Arrests

Kenya dropped one position to rank 144th in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index last year.

Other speech highlights;

  • East Africa’s largest economy will probably expand 6.3 percent this year from an estimated 6.1 percent in 2018 as the government spends more.
  • The nation’s power-generation capacity is now at 2,712 megawatts compared with 1,768 megawatts in 2013; electricity connections at 7.1 million from 2.1 million in period.
  • Kenyatta’s administration plans to introduce a bill for the creation of a sovereign wealth fund as the nation aspires to produce oil.

To contact the reporters on this story: David Herbling in Nairobi at dherbling@bloomberg.net;Eric Ombok in Nairobi at eombok@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson

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