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KENYA: GOVERNMENT FACES TIGHT CONDITIONS FROM WORLD BANK March 13, 2006
Apunyu Bonny
(SomaliNet) If Kenya is to lift the aid freeze slapped on it following the emergence of the Anglo Leasing twin scandals, The World Bank demands that Kenya must observe Press freedom as an additional condition to the terms.
Kenya now has to work extra time to access the Sh19 billion whose disbursement the bank suspended in January citing the failure of the Government to deal with rampant corruption in the public sector and to undertake reforms agreed earlier.
World Bank Kenya Country Director, Mr. Colin Bruce On Sunday, said the Bank would demand an assurance from the Government that no further attacks on the media would happen before any action is taken to reactivate frozen funding programmes.
Bruce criticised Kenyan government for adopting what he described as a lethargic approach to corruption, citing the Anglo Leasing saga whose details were made public through the so-called Githongo dossier.
Bruce said the World Bank had revised its classification of Kenya to the "low case" since the Githongo dossier came to light occasioning the slow down in disbursement of funds. "Low case" is a classification that the Bank gives to countries that have not met its expectations, but have not degenerated to unmanageable levels.
World Bank made the decision a few days before Githongo went public with his Anglo Leasing dossier on a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) TV programme.The move also marks a further degeneration of the relations between the Government of President Kibaki and the donor community. It comes barely two days after the International Monetary Fund announced that it was withholding Sh23.5 billion it had promised the Kenya government for disbursement over a period of three years.
Mean while, Kenya’s President has lost senior allies – including former ministers David Mwiraria, Chris Murungaru and Kiraitu Murungi – to the raging wave of Anglo Leasing claims, which are also threatening the positions of Vice President Moody Awori and Civil Service boss Francis Muthaura. Both have appeared before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee.