Expensive Tokyo embassy leads to Kenyan resignations

The Kenyan foreign minister has resigned from office over allegations of corruption. Moses Wetangula stepped down, just hours after the country’s president accepted the resignation of Wetangula’s permanent secretary Mwangi Thuita.

Reuters

A parliamentary committee has recommended they step aside to pave way for investigations into huge bills for a new embassy in Tokyo.

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Samuel Kimeu of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International in Kenya

“The allegations are that the government of Japan had offered Kenya property free of charge to have an embassy, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs declined that offer and said it was not suitable, and so the ministry decided to buy another property which is not situated in a place which would be suitable for an embassy", according to Samuel Kimeu, of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International in Kenya.

"That’s what the parliamentary commission alleges, and that they paid a lot of money for it so Kenyans didn’t get value for money”.

Now embassies in Islamabad, Brussels, Lagos and Cairo are also being looked into.

The committee says that money from the sale of Kenyan property in Nigeria was withheld and used to buy the Tokyo building.