President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday named Labour Cabinet Secretary, Ukur Yattani as acting Treasury Cabinet Secretary to replace discredited Henry Rotich, who was arrested on Monday over corruption charges.
The former treasury boss, Rotich was arrested over multi-million-dollar dam scandal, with investigators probing the possible loss of 19 billion shillings ($182 million), meant for the construction of the two multi-purpose dams in Kerio Valley namely, Arror and Kimwarer dams in Rift valley.
Also arrested was treasury Principal Secretary, Kamau Thuge, Dr. Susan Jemtai Koech, Principal Secretary, Ministry of East Africa Community among other senior government officials.
Kenyatta also named Julius Monzi Muia as the Principal Secretary for the National Treasury. He was the Principal Secretary for Planning.
Kenya’s Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji, said that investigations established that the government officials flouted all procurement rules and abused their oath of office to ensure the scheme went through.
The construction of the two dams were supposed to be constructed at a cost of 46 billion shillings, however the National Treasury went ahead and borrowed 17 billion shillings more, inflating the total cost of the project to 63 billion shillings ($609 million), without regard to performance or works.
So brazen is the scandal that money was paid to bankrupt Italian firm CMC di Ravenna, whose officials have never been on the site, and for a project that has not even been designed.
JK/abj/APA