Leaders urged not to invoke tribe in graft purge

Government officials implicated in corruption have been told to carry their own cross and stop dragging their communities into their personal woes.

Home Affairs assistant minister Beatrice Kones and a former MP Njoki Ndung’u said the war on corruption should not take ethnic undertones since those who stole public money did not share it with their tribes.

Mrs Kones and Ms Ndung’u said it was unfair for those implicated in graft to claim "our people are being finished".

"Nobody should be spared in this do or die campaign to stamp out the national cancer which has permeated the entire spectrum of the country’s social spectrum for years”, they said.

The two leaders, who were speaking in Mombasa on the sidelines of a retreat for senior officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs, however, said the crackdown on corrupt leaders should be free from witchhunt.

They hailed the new constitutional dispensation as a “new dawn” for the country, which if applied to the letter will weed out all cases of corruption in the country.

In the past three weeks, two ministers, a permanent secretary and a mayor have left office to allow investigation into graft allegations.

Higher Education minister William Ruto, his Foreign Affairs counterpart Moses Wetang'ula, the PS Thuita Mwangi and Nairobi Mayor Geophrey Majiwa will only resume office after they are cleared of wrongdoing.

President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga have vowed to intensify the fight against corruption saying no one will be spared regardless of the place in society.