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Kenya's president has replaced the country's finance minister, who has been accused of fraud on multi-million dollar contracts for the construction of two dams in the west of the country.
This is the first time that a finance minister of the East Africa Economic Center, plagued by widespread corruption, is accused in the performance of his duties . Henry Rotich denied the allegations during a court appearance Tuesday.
The Kenyan government said in a statement on Wednesday that Labor Minister Ukur Yatani Kanacho would badume the role of interim president.
Yatani is a former legislator who was ambbadador to Austria and regional governor before his appointment to Cabinet last year.
All permanent ministerial appointments in Kenya must be approved by parliament.
President Uhuru Kenyatta also replaced the number two from the Ministry of Finance, Kamau Thugge, indicted alongside Rotich.
Several other senior officials accused by Rotich and Thugge have also been replaced.
The accusations allege that officials conspired to defraud the government in the dam project in Elgeyo Marakwet County, where no construction has begun despite billions of shillings spent.
The Italian construction company CMC di Ravenna, who is also involved in the corruption investigation, has denied any wrongdoing and said Tuesday that she was cooperating with the authorities.
Kenya's public prosecutor Noordin Haji said on Tuesday that Nairobi was about to request the extradition of one of the company's directors to face charges.
Prosecutors accuse the company, Rotich and other Kenyan officials of having inflated to 63 billion shillings ($ 608 million) the cost of building two dams in the west of the country, on an initial cost of 46 billion shillings (440 million dollars).
Prosecutors allege that the advances were spread over accounts belonging to the alleged conspirators and their agents.
CMC denied any connection to these arrangements.
"The accusation would actually refer to the financing conditions, by world-clbad banks on the international stage, of public works outsourced by Kenya to CMC," he said.
According to prosecutors, work on both dams has not started yet. Prosecutors said that no land where the roadblocks were to be built had yet been acquired.
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