Nairobi, Oct 7 (IANS ) Kenya has called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to conduct an official review of the country's corruption and governance issues, a senior government official said on Monday.
Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, also the Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs, said that the IMF will make a corruption and governance diagnosis to ensure the government can curb the never-ending corruption that continues to hurt Kenyans' economy and livelihoods.
"We need to take the fight on corruption a notch higher and cast away the spirit of corruption. The war on corruption has taken a long time. We must ask ourselves where corruption is domiciled so that we can tackle it head-on," Mudavadi said in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
The move came after Kenyan President William Ruto faced pressure from young protesters demanding accountability and pledged in July to propose changes to the relevant law to seal the loopholes that undermine the fight against corruption.
Ruto said the legal amendments would include cracking down on corrupt officials and those displaying opulence and wastage in government spending amid the high cost of living, Xinhua news agency reported.
On Monday, Mudavadi noted that the diagnosis will be in every ministry and all government institutions as the government takes the fight against corruption to a new level.
He urged all government officers to fully engage in the critical exercise, as those who do not participate will face scrutiny.
In September, the IMF urged Kenya to intensify efforts to tackle budgetary and economic challenges following taxation reforms that sparked mass protests in June.
Under the IMF disbursement plan, set to expire in 2025, Kenya was supposed to secure a 600-million-U.S. dollar loan facility, but this was delayed after the government withdrew its plan to raise an additional 2.7 billion dollars to fund the 31 billion dollar budget for the financial year 2024/2025 after mass protests.