US DISMISSES KALONZO MUSYOKA'S CLAIM OF AID AS FICTION

Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka (left) and US Deputy in charge of State Department Donald Yamamoto(right) met on February 5, 2010. Photo/VPPS

By KEVIN J KELLEY
New York
February 13 2010

The US State Department on Friday dismissed as “fiction” Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka’s recent claim that Kenya will be fast-tracked for millions of dollars in US development aid.

Mr Musyoka said during a visit to Washington a week ago that the State Department had agreed to help Kenya qualify for a compact with the US government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation.

The vice president trumpeted that supposed breakthrough following his February 6 meeting with Donald Yamamoto, the principal deputy assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Mr Musyoka’s publicists contended that the State Department was rewarding Kenya for progress made in the constitutional review process and in implementing anti-corruption reforms.

But after checking with Mr Yamamoto on Friday, a State Department official told the Nation that no such assurances or affirmations were made. Mr Musyoka’s version of what transpired at the meeting is “fiction,” the US official said in an unusually strong rebuke.

Mr Yamamoto had actually told the vice president that Kenya must make further progress in controlling corruption before it can qualify for Millennium Challenge assistance, the official said.

Kenya has failed the eligibility test for Millennium Challenge aid in each of the past five years because it falls short on governance standards.