Jubilee has made the biggest recovery of stolen assets Uhuru

President Uhuru Kenyatta says that the government has recovered approximately Ksh 3 billion that had been stolen from Kenyans by individuals through flawed procurement of good and services or payment for the same.

Addressing a joint session of the National Assembly and the Senate during his State of the Nation Address, President Kenyatta said that this has been in line with his 2013 promise to wipe out corruption in the country.

“To date approximately 3 Billion shillings has either been recovered or preserved for recovery a first in Kenya’s history,” said President Kenyatta.

He said that the recovered funds will be used for social programs such as purchasing of ambulances.

“Going forward we are creating a framework of how recovered funds will be used in a transparent and accountable manner,” he added.

“We have chosen an approach that prevention is better than cure. Cash payment, inefficiency and delays in service delivery breed corrupt practices.”

He added: “We have therefore invested in making service delivery more efficient and accessible through the Huduma Centres the E- Citizen, iTax, land registry services and other digitized platforms.”

President Kenyatta noted that coming into government in 2013, his administration was awake to the fact that eliminating corruption would be a journey on a rocky path.

“We started the journey by pledging to strengthen our legal processes to wage a successful war against economic crimes,” he said.

“Today, we have 90 Special Prosecutors for economic crimes, in the Judiciary and the Chief Justice has established a Special Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Division of the High Court, and has appointed 13 Special Magistrates to deal with anti-corruption and economic crimes cases.”

“In 2013, we pledged to make the necessary policy and legal changes to ensure that corrupt persons and companies would be barred from doing business with the Government. We have kept our promise by enacting a modern and far reaching Bribery Act which I assented to late last year.”

He said that the government will continue to pursue and freeze assets and proceeds of corruption and economic crimes.

“We have established the institutions that give us the capability to trace and recover money and assets globally which have been stolen from the public. These include the Asset Recovery Agency, the Financial Reporting Centre and the new investigations department of the Kenya Revenue Authority. Where I am pleased to report that successes are being reported,” he added.

The Jubilee administration has faced serious corruption allegations including the National Youth Service (NYS) scam where Kenya lost over Ksh 1.8 billion, the Afya House scandal where Ksh 3.2 billion was allegedly lost and billions lost through flawed procurements at both county and national levels.