Former President Daniel Arap Moi has died at the age of 95 while at Nairobi Hospital, the current Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced.
“ My heartfelt condolences to the family of former President Mzee Moi. This is a sad day for the entire Republic of Kenya,” he says .
The American government, through its embassy in Nairobi, also conveyed its condolences to Kenyans and President’s Moi’s family.
“We offer our deepest condolences to the Kenyan people and to the family and friends of former President Daniel Arap Moi upon his passing. As a friend and partner of Kenya for over 55 years, the United States stands with Kenyans during this time of mourning,” states Ambassador Kyle Carter.
Moi, who would have been aged 96 on September 2nd, 2019 is best remembered for leading Kenya between August 1978 and 2000 at a time when the country was embarking on its first liberalisation policy and transition to democratic politics.
According to the Independent newspaper, President Moi became one of the few Presidents in Africa, apart from the Zambian one, Kenneth Kaunda, who rejected international aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), albeit without much luck.
Liberalisation of the economy was a policy created to ensure that between the 1980’s and 1990s, the free market would be able to play a bigger role in the economy and the government would reduce its role in the same, states “Kenya’s Trade Liberalisation.”
It, thus, entailed removing price controls that had been imposed for products due to structural adjustment programs (S.A.P.’s) by foreign governments who had given loans to Kenya and the rest of Africa.
Liberalisation meant that institutions such as the IMF would be able to hand out fewer loans to the government as private institutions would be able to determine their own prices. Privatization, of public institutions, then followed suit.
Ironically, after President Moi’s departure from power on December 30th 2002, the governments of both Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta were given to taking loans from the Chinese governments to fund infrastructural projects such as the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), acclimatising the era of the IMF and President Moi’s then regime.
But President Moi’s rule was further characterized by corruption, such as the Goldenberg scandal. According to Report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Goldenberg Affair, the government of President Moi, through the Central Bank, had been in receipt of Kshs 13.5 billion from the company associated with businessman Kamlesh M. Pattni.
He had convinced the state of how it could earn forex from gold exported from the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C) to the country, through his company, Goldenberg International Limited, from which the name came from.
It was a scandal that the Commission of Inquiry in 2005, had facilitated the passing of Proceeds of Crime Act due to the extent of money laundering that had been involved, states that report.
It further urged for the investigations of the then President Moi and his associates such as Joshua Kulei, “to determine whether they had been involved in the crime.”
Two years later, intelligence company, Kroll Associates which had been hired by the government of retired President Mwai Kibaki to trace funds which had been taken out of the country, revealed how the family of President Moi had been involved in the looting of funds, in a document that was leaked by Austrian journalist Julian Assange.
