Kenya’s £1bn corruption scandal

published 10 September 2007

The "breathtaking extent" of the corruption perpetrated by former Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi was exposed last week, when a secret report was obtained by the website Wikileaks.org, said Xan Rice in The Guardian. The report by corporate security group Kroll, under wraps for three years, exposed a web of shell firms and trusts used by relatives and associates of Moi to siphon off more than £1bn of government money. Assets accumulated included multi-million-pound properties in Britain, New York, South Africa and Australia and bank accounts worth hundreds of millions. Moi's sons, Philip and Gideon, are said to be worth £384m and £550m respectively. The report, commissioned by President Mwai Kibaki, who came to power in 2003 on an anti-corruption ticket, and is standing for a second five-year term this December, is believed to have been leaked by a senior government official upset about Kibaki's failure to tackle corruption and his recent alliance with Moi. The former president, whose 24-year rule was widely despised, recently gave a rare press conference to back Kibaki's bid. The Kroll investigation was meant to be the first step towards recovering some of the stolen cash, but Kibaki's government was soon caught up in its own scandal, known as Anglo Leasing, after being accused of awarding huge government contracts to bogus companies. Since then, no one in Moi's intimate circle has been prosecuted, nor has any money been recovered.

A government spokesman, Alfred Mutua, said the report was a political gimmick' and that the UK Government had been asked for help but refused, a claim denied by the Foreign Office. The strange thing is that "Danny boy" only managed to salt away £1bn, said Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times. After all, this was at a time when the world was distracted by more obviously "deranged" megalomaniacs such as Emperor' Bokassa or Mugabe. The question remains, how much will Kibaki "trouser"?