AFRICA/KENYA - “Let us fight corruption as Pope Francis asked us to do” says Archbishop Kairo

Nairobi (Agenzia Fides)- A Kenyan archbishop has reminded President Uhuru Kenyatta of what Pope Francis said during his visit to the African country about fighting corruption. “During the meeting with young people at Kasarani Sports Stadium, the Pope asked the young people to resist corruption and he asked the head of State to master this sin” said Archbishop Peter Kairo of Nyeri, during a ceremony for the beginning of construction work to build a shrine next to the church of Our Lady of Divine Providence dedicated to Blessed Sister Irene Stefani. Sr Stefani was beatified on 23 May 2015 during Mass presided by Cardinal Polycarpo Pengo, Archbishop of Dar-es-Salaam in Nyeri in the presence of 100,000 faithful from different parts of the world and watched on television by millions of others. Sr Irene Stefani, was a member of the Consolata Missionaries and known to all as “Nyaatha”, “mother of mercy” because of the tender care she showed especially to the sick (see Fides 20/5/2015).
Archbishop Kairo chose this occasion to voice the Church’s concern regarding cases of corruption ranging from illegal appropriation of funds at local and national level, payment of bribes to state officials, including judiciary officers, to fraud in public contracts.
Recent cases regard the disappearance of 7.9 million dollars from the Youth Fund, a scandal which, it would seem, “is only the tip of the iceberg of corruption in Kenya”; the embezzling of a Eurobond loan of 2.5 billion dollars and suspected bribes when a British firm inflated prices of electoral materials in 2013.
According to the Index of International Transparency Kenya is one of the world’s most corrupt countries, and is 139th on a list of 168 ( from “virtuous” countries down to the most corrupt). (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 4/3/2016)

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