Uhuru scoffs at report on poll chaos

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday denied allegations that he was among ministers accused of plotting and financing the post-election violence.

He said that he never attended a meeting which planned retaliatory measures against communities that had attacked Kikuyus in the Rift Valley, as claimed in a Kenya National Commission for Human Rights report.

Mr Kenyatta said the report should have exposed the real organisers of the violence.

On Tuesday, Bureti MP Franklin Bett joined Mr Kenyatta in lambasting the report.

“I have just been informed by a confidante that my name has been prominently mentioned and I wish to categorically deny that I played any role in the chaos,” Mr Bett said.

He described his inclusion in the report as the work of “gossip collectors and rumour mongers” and said he was ready to produce evidence that he was not in Kericho at the time the report says he was mobilising youths.

“I am ready to provide documentary evidence that I was at the KICC on December 30, 2007 ,” he said.

Mr Bett said he had instructed his lawyer to study the report and take the necessary measures to clear his name.

He said he would accept nothing less than his name being expunged from the report and an apology.

“Instead of mentioning those who were in hotels planning to steal the votes, they mention me who was planning to celebrate victory,” he said.

Mr Bett also lashed out at the Waki Commission, saying it has been unfair to the people of South Rift.

“The commission did not sit in Kericho, Sotik, Litein and Bomet but found it fit to sit in Molo, Kisii to talk about us,” he said.

Cabinet reshuffle

“We have issues to tell the commission,” he said.

Meanwhile, Medical Services assistant minister Danson Mungatana has demanded an “immediate” Cabinet reshuffle to get rid of all those implicated in the violence.

“Their staying on is a national embarrassment,” he said.

He said the political pressure that may have necessitated their appointment was no longer there. “They should never have been appointed in the first place,” he said.

In the report, the rights commission mentioned five Cabinet ministers, 13 MPs and other leaders as having fuelled the violence.

“You do not discuss your innocence in the media, the press can not clear you, that’s the prerogative of the courts,” Mr Mungatana said.

Reported by Abdulsamad Ali and Alphonce Shiundu