Kenya’s ambassador to the United Nations has denied allegations levelled against him by a parliamentary committee that also recommended his removal from office.Mr Macharia Kamau terms claims by the Defence and Foreign Relations Committee that he has misappropriated funds and abandoned his official residence in Bronx, New York, for a more luxurious apartment as “misleading and calibrated to be career terminating and worse, cause personal injury and pain.”
He was responding to a report tabled in 10th Parliament by the committee last week, calling for his dismissal for among others, abuse of office
‘Driven by malice’
But Mr Kamau says that the findings of the committee are not factual and are driven by malice.
He says that ministry officials and MPs who visited New York last year on a fact-finding mission concluded that the residence in question was uninhabitable.
“They even visited the premises in the Bronx and concurred that it is both unsuitable and logistically inappropriate as an official residence of the ambassador,” he says.
According to the envoy, he was compelled to move into a three-bedroom flat in the vicinity of his office in Manhattan owing to the condition of the official residence and the logistics of living far away in the Bronx.
“Residing in that simple flat is hardly flattering to my ego and it is, in fact, humbling.” He says the monthly rent of US $9,835 (Sh845,810) is not exaggerated as it is the rate in that part of town. On claims by the committee that there were irregularities in the manner in which he was appointed, the envoy says he is in possession of a “genuine letter of appointment and a current contract from President Kibaki.”
He also refutes claims of high-handedness and that he has a big ego.
“I am not egocentric and I have a very good working relations with my colleagues at the office,” he told the Nation by telephone.
By BMJ Muriiithi, Atlanta Georgia, USA
- Daily Nation
