Annan tells Kenya: act fast on reforms, corruption

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Mon Mar 30, 2009 12:29pm EDT

* Annan calls for faster action on agreed Kenyan reforms

* Kenyans frustrated about coalition government corruption



By Robert Evans

GENEVA, March 30 (Reuters) - Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday urged Kenya's coalition government, in whose creation he played a key role, to move fast to implement agreed reforms and tackle widespread corruption.

"Kenya is at a crossroads. The time to act is now," he told a conference marking the first anniversary of the power-sharing agreement he negotiated between the country's two main political parties to end post-election violence.

Kenyans initially welcomed the programme of reform announced by the administration of President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, he said, but were now disillusioned.

"They are equally angry at widespread corruption and the lack of action to root it out," Annan told the gathering, attended by senior Kenyan officials including Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi and Justice Minister Martha Karua.

"But the situation is not hopeless," the former U.N. chief said. "The government can turn things around by acting swiftly and effectively on the agreed constitutional, parliamentary, judicial, police and land reforms."

About 1,300 people were killed in Kenya's post-election violence in late 2007 and early 2008, triggered by suspicions the outcome of the presidential contest between Odinga and Kibaki was rigged.

Annan negotiated a deal with the two leaders that ended the unrest, which had caused 300,000 people to flee their homes.

The agreed reform programme included establishment of a tribunal to try the main instigators of the conflict, but that has yet to be set up.

Corruption is widely seen as flourishing under the coalition, according to diplomats and analysts in Nairobi, and prominent anti-graft campaigner Mwalimu Mati said this month Kibaki and Odinga should beware the people's "revolutionary" spirit.

Earlier this month, thousands of students, slum dwellers and jobless people protested in Nairobi against alleged police killings in one of the worst bouts of political unrest since the post-election crisis.

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