FOREIGN Affairs minister Moses Wetangula was reinstated to the Cabinet and Thuita Mwangi returned as Permanent Secretary on Wednesday. Both honourably stood aside last year to allow investigations into the purchase of a new Tokyo embassy at the inflated price of Sh1.65 billion.
Yet those investigations are still underway at the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission. The government even applied to Japan last month for mutual legal assistance and last week KACC said its probe could not completed until that assistance was available.
It is unfortunate that their reappointment has prejudged the outcome of the probe because there were numerous irregularities in the purchase. The price was almost double what it should have been and it was paid in cash. The building even burned down shortly after it was bought.
Wetangula and Mwangi may indeed be innocent of any wrongdoing over the purchase of the Tokyo embassy, although they were the two top decision-makers in the ministry.
But it is unfortunate that the President and Prime Minister did not wait for the outcome of the KACC report. It now appears that the President and the Prime Minister are more interested in the political arithmetic of the run-up to 2012 than in ending Kenya's culture of impunity.
Quote of the day: "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." - Roman emperor Julius Caesar invaded Britain on August 26, 55 BC.
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