Kenya chief graft buster asks minister to quit

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's anti-corruption chief has asked Education Minister Sam Ongeri and his permanent secretary James Ole Kiyiapi to resign over the loss of billions of shillings in the ministry.

Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta said on Monday that 4.2 billion shillings (28.6 million pounds) was lost over a period of four fiscal years (2005-2009) in the education ministry, roughly equivalent to 1 percent of the education budget in that period.

Patrick Lumumba, head of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) said the minister and the top civil servant should take responsibility for the loss.

"The Minister and the Permanent Secretary in charge of the Ministry should take responsibility and resign, and that if they don't resign the Honourable President of the Republic of Kenya should dismiss them," Lumumba said on local Citizen Television late on Tuesday.

"That is what is done in civilised democracies. You cannot continue to preside over a herd of animals, where animals continue to disappear and you don't take responsibility."

Ole Kiyiapi dismissed the allegations, saying he was not working in the education ministry at the time of the scandal.

"It is not helpful for the head of anti-corruption to make ... an alarming statement that can cause confusion and mislead the public. I believe those concerned must take responsibility and their names (and the) facts are known," he told a news conference on Wednesday.

According to KACC, East Africa's biggest economy loses up to 40 percent of its gross domestic product to graft annually.

No Kenyan minister has ever been convicted of corruption, a pervasive problem in the nation of 39 million people.

Weak laws have slowed KACC's battle against the vice, analysts say, but Kenya's new constitution is expected to give it the power to arrest and prosecute suspects.

Kenya slipped down the rankings of Transparency International's 2010 corruption perceptions index, falling to 154 out of 178 countries. (Reporting by George Obulutsa and Humphrey Malalo)

(This June 15 story was corrected in paragraph 2 to change the amount to 4.2 billion shillings from 2.27 billion shillings)