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Kibaki names ally as acting Kenya...
2008-07-12 10:11:44
By NAIROBI
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki appointed a key ally, John Michuki, acting finance minister on Friday after his predecessor stepped aside for an investigation of his role in the sale of a luxury hotel.
Michuki, a provincial administrator during the colonial era who later held the powerful Internal Security docket, is currently the east African country`s environment minister.
A statement from the president`s office said the appointment would take effect immediately.
Kibaki appointed a commission of inquiry on Thursday into the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel, which has divided his fragile coalition cabinet, patched together earlier this year to end post-election violence.
Finance Minister Amos Kimunya left his position on Tuesday after parliament passed a vote of no-confidence in his role in the sale, which critics denounced as the latest example of grand corruption to afflict the region`s biggest economy.
Kimunya says his conscience remains clear over his role in the affair. Critics say the hotel was secretly sold to Libyan buyers at the low price of 2.9 billion shillings ($45 million).
Anti-graft groups and some government ministers have criticised the no-bid sale, saying it should have been public and that the luxury hotel was worth almost 6 billion shillings.
A government spokesman had said earlier this week that Kimunya would not immediately be replaced because he had only stepped aside temporarily.
The hotel saga has widened fault-lines between pro-Kibaki ministers and those supporting Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the former opposition leader.
Odinga`s supporters say Kibaki stole the presidential vote in December by fraud. Kibaki`s side says Odinga deliberately stirred violence that killed 1,500 in the most traumatic period of Kenya`s post-independence history.
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