Kenyan Minister Quits Over Embassy Scandal

Kenyan Minister Quits Over Embassy Scandal

Kenya 's foreign Minister, Moses Wetangula has said he is resigning to allow investigations into allegations of a multimillion dollar scandal involving five Kenyan embassies in Africa , Europe and Asia .

The Minister's announcement came on Wednesday, less than an hour before parliament was to continue debate on a committee report that investigated the sale or purchase of Kenyan embassies, land and other property in Belgium , Egypt , Japan , Nigeria and Pakistan .

Allegations of misinformation

The committee was quoted to have said Wetangula deliberately misinformed them about the transactions and called for him to step aside.

The report's most serious allegation is that Kenya paid too much money for land to build a new embassy in Tokyo . It claims that Kenya lost 1.1 billion shillings in the transaction.

During Tuesday's debate on the committee report , Wetangula denied any personal wrongdoing in the incident. He acknowledged that the report contained information he was not aware of, including allegations that embassy officials in Tokyo withdrew hundreds of millions of Japanese Yen in cash to pay for the land; a situation he said was unusual in government transactions.

"I cannot and I will not condone any malpractices or corruption. I will be the first to fire the first shot" , Wetangula said.

An ally of Wetangula moved a motion on Tuesday to have parliament delete the sections of the report that claimed Wetangula misinformed them and should resign, arguing, like Wetangula had done earlier, that the minister had no hand in the transactions.

Kenya is ranked 154 out of 178 nations on a corruption index released by Transparency International this week.

AP/Evelyn/Yinka