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Kenya: Foreign Minister resigns

By on October 29, 2010
The Kenyan Foreign Minister, Moses Wetangula, declared to the press he was leaving the government to face corruption charges which he is the object in a series of real estate transactions of his department abroad.

Moses Wetangula had particularly been strongly questioned by the Kenyan Parliament, including its decision to deny a land proposed by the Japanese government in the center of Tokyo, preferring to acquire for 13.6 million Euros this year a farthest building to serve as Embassy, against the advice of a real estate firm. He also explained on several other land transactions of his department considered unreliable in Lagos, Islamabad, Brussels and Lagos. The minister has clearly blamed any possible irregularity on his subordinates. IT seems that the government has adopted a more combative attitude towards corruption, which has been blighting for decades the Kenyan state. Thus, a national heavyweight in politics, William Ruto, had been suspended from his position as Minister of Higher Education last week after being indicted in a corruption scandal dating back to 2004. In the same way, the head of the administration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thuita Mwangi, resigned also from his position to allow Parliament to continue its investigation of the alleged corrupted transactions. According to a new annual ranking released by Transparency International, Kenya, the East Africa economic engine, has lost few seats and is ranked today 154th out of 178 countries, according to its level of corruption, at the same level as Russia, Kazakhstan and the RDC.

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