Muigwithania 2.0

The zimbabwe government has responded to kenyan prime minister, raila odinga’s calls for military action on zimbabwe and for the african union to expel the country from the group by saying he is not qualified to speak on zimbabwe as his hands ‘drip of blood’. In response to questions about recent utterances by prime minister odinga presidential spokesman, george charamba said: “you follow politics carefully.

I hope you follow kenyan politics closely. Prime minister raila odinga’s hands drip with blood,” said charamba. He continued, ”raw african blood, and that blood is not going to be cleansed by any amount of abuse of zimbabwe.”odinga has become one of the harshest critics of the zimbabwean government. He called for zimbabwe to be suspended from the african union until president robert mugabe allows ‘free and fair elections’ adding that the au would be making a grave mistake if it recognized president mugabe as a legitimately-elected president.he also asked the african union (au) to deploy peacekeeping forces in zimbabwe to protect opposition supporters from alleged harassment and torture.charamba’s response referred to kenya’s recent which saw raila odinga declared prime minister after coalition talks with president mwai kibaki.

The kenyan election was marred by the worst election violence ever seen on the continent, with 300 pre election deaths and over 1 500 people dying post election.the government of president kibaki accused odinga’s party of unleashing “genocide” on the kenyan people. The coalition government in kenya has not been without problems as violence has continued in kenya.kenyan politics is deeply embedded in tribalism with most members of parliament elected on the basis of tribal and community votes.recently tension has been rising in kenya’s rift valley, the epicentre of last january’s post-election chaos

Finance Minister Amos Kimunya remained defiant last night, rebuffed calls for his resignation and denied acting with impunity over the secret sale of the Grand Regency Hotel.The minister insisted the Sh2.9 billion the Government received from the Libyans was the best value for the national asset and that the deal was clean.Kimunya, who spoke to The Standard on the telephone, said the deal did not involve President Kibaki and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.”It was a clean deal that was directly between the Libyan Embassy in Nairobi and the Central Bank of Kenya,” said the minister as he sought to distance the two presidents from the sale that has sparked controversy and calls for his resignation.Despite the barrage of condemnation and protests by Cabinet ministers, religious leaders, civil society and other Kenyans to resign, Kimunya said the calls were not justified and some of his colleagues were making utterances from a point of ignorance.He threw brickbats at his Cabinet colleague, Constitutional Affairs Minister Martha Karua, accusing her of emotionally whipping propaganda to misinform the public.Kimunya suggested it was Karua and other ministers of her ilk who should be resigning and not himself. He said they were “incompetent to serve as ministers”.”If a minister can accuse me on the sale of Grand Regency without clarifying from me the details of the same, it is really unfortunate, and that is why they should resign first because they are incompetent,” said Kimunya.

Its mere politics

He added: “This deal was so official that I cannot understand why ministers would want to demonise it without even knowing the facts,” said Kimunya.The minister said calls for his sacking and resignation were “pure propaganda” and that his colleagues were a let down to the Government and Kenyans for commenting on issues before verifying facts “which are in the open”.”The highest value for the purchase of Grand Regency was Sh2.1 billion, but it was sold for Sh2.9 billion last week after the sale was finalised and the transfer made,” explained Kimunya.He said claims that the hotel was sold for Sh7 billion were malicious and a plot by some politicians in Government to demonise him.Kimunya also defended claims against single sourcing, saying the Libyans registered their interest for the Grand Regency since April and nobody else came up with any other offer.”The issue of single sourcing does not arise because no other country was interested. Again, there are no complaints from any country that had shown interest in purchasing Grand Regency,” the minister said.He said several brokers and agents had been cut off from the deal and this had not gone down well with many parties, including some politicians now making accusations.

“My colleagues are busy making comments on an issue they seem not to understand. None of them has asked me to explain the details, and again, it’s all in the open. Theirs is political propaganda which does not help anybody,” he said.The minister also denied allegations of corruption and money changing hands between senior officials and the Libyans. He said no government could bribe another in such a deal.”It was the Libyan government that wanted to deal directly with Central Bank. I could not have said anything until the deal had been done. It’s on record and in the open,” said Kimunya.

MPs are malicious

Kimunya introduced another dimension to the saga, claiming that he had suddenly become unpopular among MPs in Parliament after introducing taxes on their allowances.”They think by making malicious statements on serious issues they will cut me down to size. I challenge anybody who has evidence that the hotel was sold at Sh7 billion to produce it,” said Kimunya.And Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula, speaking from Egypt where he is attending the African Union summit, said he knew of the deal between the Libyan Embassy and the Central Bank.Wetangula, however, said he had long left Wetangula, Adam Makhokha and Company Advocates, the firm said to have handled the sale transaction.The minister said he retired from the firm in January after he was appointed to the Cabinet. But the law firm retained the name for purposes of business.