President Uhuru Kenyatta and his family have been linked to billions of shillings stashed in offshore accounts by the latest leak of financial documents that exposed the dealings of billionaire, politicians and leaders from across the world.
The records, ‘Pandora Papers’ were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and shared with reporters and media houses across the world.
They have since linked President Kenyatta and six members of his family to a network of 11 offshore accounts bearing a total of $30 million (Ksh3.31 billion).
According to the BBC, the Kenyatta Family set up a foundation named Varies in 2003 in which former first lady Mama Ngina Kenyatta is the first beneficiary and President Kenyatta is the second. The foundation is based in Panama.
The other family members include his brother and two sisters, who own five offshore accounts.
ICIJ, however, noted that the family accumulated most of its offshore wealth before President Kenyatta became Head of State.
“In Kenya, the president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has portrayed himself as an enemy of corruption,” the Guardian reported.
“Every public servant’s assets must be declared publicly so that people can question and ask: what is legitimate?” President Kenyatta told BBC in 2018.
“He will come under pressure to explain why he and his close relatives amassed more than $30m of offshore wealth, including property in London. Kenyatta did not respond to enquiries about whether his family wealth was declared to relevant authorities in Kenya,” The Guardian reported.
The Pandora Papers investigation by ICIJ revealed the financial dealings of multiple Heads of State including; the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists obtained the trove of more than 11.9 million confidential files and led a team of more than 600 journalists from 150 news outlets that spent two years sifting through them, tracking down hard-to-find sources and digging into court records and other public documents from dozens of countries,” ICIJ said.
The probe revealed that the records – from the Panamanian law firm Aleman, Cordero, Galindo & Lee (Alcogal) – show that the Kenyatta family “owned at least seven such entities, two registered anonymously in Panama and five in the British Virgin Islands.”
“One BVI company owned a home in central London, according to the records, and two other companies held investment portfolios worth tens of millions of dollars,” ICIJ stated.
According to the papers, the Kenyatta family accumulated the wealth in offshore accounts since the reign of late former President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi.