Now that the colonel is about to go, who will fund the African Union?
Now that Brother-Colonel Muammar Gaddafi will no longer dispense his largesse, the nabobs at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa might have to look for another source of sustenance.
However, the dramatic development in Tripoli does not change the fact that the Libyan Revolution was stolen by Western powers.
The authorities that take charge in Libyan will thus have the added burden of demonstrating that they are true leaders of the revolution rather than mere puppets of Washington, Paris and London.
And as the AU secretariat bosses try to figure out where they will get their next pay cheques, we have some people here, too, who might be wondering if they will be asked embarrassing questions.
The Kenyan Government, faithful to cosy relations with the self-proclaimed King of Africa, has ignored repeated requests to freeze Libyan assets in Kenya.
If it turns out that those assets were controlled for the benefit of the ousted ruling family, acting Foreign minister George Saitoti might be asked by the new Libyan government to explain where the proceeds have been going.
Central Bank governor Njuguna Ndung’u and Transport minister Amos Kimunya - the latter while serving as Finance minister - both played key roles in ‘‘facilitating’’ the transfer of the Grand Regency Hotel, now Laico Regency, to a Libyan Government corporation.
There was something decidedly fishy about the deal, especially in the way Goldenberg scandal principal Kamlesh Pattni was given extraordinary leeway to identify the buyers and negotiate the terms despite the story that he had surrendered his interests in the hotel to the Central Bank of Kenya in exchange for a halt in recovery proceedings.
Then there is President Kibaki’s State House. Early in his first term, the President dispatched his nephew, aide and political fixer, Mr Alex Kibaki Mureithi, to cut business deals in Tripoli. It was a freelance initiative, but Mr Mureithi was armed with a letter introducing himself to Col Gaddafi as a ‘‘special envoy’’.
It turned out that both the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade were blissfully ignorant of the strange and personal trade diplomacy being conducted out of State House.
Mr Mureithi passed on towards the end of 2007, but the networks he established bore fruit. By the middle of the following year, the Grand Regency had been purchased by the Libyans in a deal that flouted all procurement regulations.
Mr Kimunya was forced to ‘‘step aside’’ from the Cabinet – effectively pushed out by Prime Minister Raila Odinga – and it was not until after the storm had subsided that President Kibaki brought him back.
But Mr Kimunya has never been the same man. He was the rising young star in the Kibaki firmament and obviously saw himself as a contender for the presidential succession, but after the Libyan-Pattni-Grand Regency debacle, he came back a bitter man.
Meanwhile, the initial links established by the late Mr Mureithi blossomed. Libyan interests in Kenya now spread far and wide. They also make for a peculiar trait under the Kibaki administration: Deals with ‘‘new’’ foreign investors – such as other Arab countries and the Chinese – replacing the traditional Western interests often involve opaque private treaties that provide no room for procurement rules.
Finally, there are the Gaddafi orphans, a bunch of self-appointed elders propped up by the selfsame Pattni, who revels in his own role as the Libyan leader’s special envoy to the Kenyan people!
* * * *
PECULIAR KENYANS: I think it’s only in Kenya that greasy fast-food attracts hordes willing to pay premium prices for some unseen prestige.
But just for the record, the newly-opened Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet at Nairobi’s Dagoretti Corner is not the first ever in Kenya. Col Sanders first sold us his Finger-Lickin’ Good chicken in the 1970s from a place next to the then Agip Motel, off Waiyaki Way near the Westlands roundabout.
I don’t know why the place closed down after just a short time, but I suppose Kenyans of the day were much more discerning. They would not scramble over each other and dig deep into their pockets for the dubious status of eating potato chips made from imported waru!
