British envoy attacks government over corruption

It was in July last year when Foreign Minister Chirau Mwakwere gave the British high commissioner Sir Edward Clay an ultimatum to produce evidence of corruption by key government ministers. Mr Clay had accused unnamed corrupt ministers and officials of behaving "like gluttons" and "vomiting on the shoes" of donors.

Mr Mwakwere had to summon Mr Clay to "give facts and figures and to name names".

The foreign minister later said Kenya was disappointed by the high commissioner's remarks and angry that he had not followed diplomatic channels.
Seven months down the line, Mr Clay is back in the limelight. The envoy has reportedly handed a dossier of 20 new corruption scandals expected to cost Kenya billions to Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki.

Mr Clay warns that "Many stones remain unturned . . . many many stones."
The envoys dossier to the President a month ago implicates at least four Cabinet ministers and dwells on the way government departments have paid for goods and services.

It focuses sharply on the Office of the President and specifically the Ministry of National Security where a hi-tech police communication system was commissioned and later cancelled.

The media reported Sir Edward named "Mount Kenya Mafia" would be better named the "Mount Kenya Marionettes" because of the way they danced "like puppets" to the tune of influential outside businessmen.”
Corruption had cost Kenya some $188m since President Mwai Kibaki took office in 2002, he added.