Kenya: PM brings back disgraced finance minister

by Dan Finnan | January 23, 2009 at 09:00 am

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Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has announced that former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, who was investigated for fraud, shall return to the cabinet.

Kimunya was probed over his involvement in the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi, to an unknown group of Libyan investors for 44 million dollars. He was acquitted, but the findings of the case were never released.

Kimunya, who was Minister of Finance between 2006 and 2008, resigned over concerns about the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi to an unspecified group of Libyan investors.

An official inquiry cleared Kimunya of any wrongdoing in November last year, but the findings were never published.

“If you use public money to inquire into the conduct of a minister, the least one would expect, is that that report will be made public, so we would see the merits behind the decision to appoint that particular minister,” said Mwalimu Mati, from the civil society group Partnership for Change.