Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has appointed Labour Minister Ukur Yatani as acting finance minister after Henry Rotich was charged with corruption.
Ukur YataniJulius Muia was appointed as principal secretary in the finance ministry, replacing Kamau Thugge, who was charged alongside Rotich, said the statement sent by the president’s spokeswoman.
Rotich and Thugge, are facing charges in the multibillion Arror and Kimwarer dam scandal and were released yesterday on Sh15 million cash bail after pleading not guilty to the charges. Rotich, who was Tuesday released on a Sh15 million cash bail is the first sitting finance minister to be arrested and arraigned for corruption.
Prosecutors accuse the company and Rotich and other Kenyan officials of inflating the cost of building two dams in the west of the country to 63 billion shillings ($608 million) from an original cost 46 billion.
Prosecutors allege that advance payments were shared out in accounts belonging to the conspirators and their agents.
CMC denied any links to those arrangements. “The accusation would refer, in fact, to the conditions of the financing, by banks of primary international standing, of the public works contracted by Kenya to CMC,” it said.
Work on the two dams has not started yet, prosecutors say, an assertion the company disputes. No land where the dams are meant to be built has yet been acquired, prosecutors say.
Hundreds of senior government officials and business people face charges under an anti-corruption drive launched last year by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government.
