Nairobi - The United States has banned a former top aide to Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and three prominent Kenyan businessmen from entering the US because of their alleged ties to corruption, officials said on Tuesday.
The move against the four is the latest salvo fired by the east African nation's major donors in a battle to push the government to do more to rein in rampant graft that has cost the country billions of dollars since the 1990s.
The US embassy in Nairobi confirmed that it had either rescinded or would not issue visas to the men, all of whom have been implicated in one of Kenya's biggest-ever graft scandals but have not yet been charged for their suspected roles.
Embassy spokesperson Bob Kerr said the ban applied to Kibaki's former personal assistant Alfred Gitonga and business moguls Jimmy Wanjigi, Deepak Kamani and Anura Perera, alleged major players in the so-called "Anglo Leasing" affair.
"I can confirm those four," he said, adding that the step came under an US executive order that allows US President George Bush to cancel or deny visas "to individuals who have engaged in corrupt practices".
Kerr said the men had received letters on Monday or Tuesday advising them that they were persona non grata status in the United States, thus joining former Kenyan transport minister Chris Murungaru on the US graft blacklist.
Murungaru, who is suing Britain over a similar visa ban, is a former close confidante of Kibaki's, sacked from his post in November amid charges he played a key role in Anglo Leasing.
Gitonga, Wanjigi, Kamani and Perera figured prominently in a report on the scam made public in January by Kenya's former anti-graft czar John Githongo, who quit last year citing death threats and is currently in exile in Britain.
Gitonga was fired as Kibaki's personal assistant in February and police ordered he and the three others to turn in their passports and any firearms in their possession pending the filing of possible criminal charges in the case.
But Perera and Kamani, who has been investigated for corruption in the past and is believed to have been at the heart of the scam, have refused to comply and authorities believe they are not currently in Kenya.
Anglo Leasing involved the payment of more than $200-million (R1,3-billion) in government funds to spurious firms for high-tech passports and police forensics labs for which no one has yet been convicted.
It is one of two corruption scandals to have rocked Kibaki's government, forcing the resignation of three cabinet ministers and drawing criticism from donors concerned his administration is failing in its declared war on graft.
The other, the so-called "Goldenberg Affair" in which at least $573,6-million were allegedly stolen from the treasury through credit schemes for fake gold and diamond exports in the 1990s, pre-dates Kibaki's administration.
But his government has been accused of failing to prosecute the masterminds of the scandal, in which a parliamentary oversight panel has called for former president Daniel arap Moi to be further investigated.
The trial of the alleged Goldenberg ringleaders was to have begun Wednesday but local press reports said it has been indefinitely delayed pending an appeal against the prosecution by the chief suspect, businessman Kamlesh Pattni. - Sapa-AFP