Kenyan authorities have arrested the head of the agency that manages public land and the boss of the state railway on suspicion of corruption over land allocation for the new $3-billion flagship Nairobi-Mombasa railway. The line connecting the capital with East Africa's main port was funded by China and is one of the biggest infrastructure projects of President Uhuru Kenyatta, whose government this year embarked on an anti-corruption drive.
Mohammed Abdalla Swazuri, the chairman of National Land Commission, was one of 18 officials, businesspeople and companies named in a statement listing arrests that was posted on Saturday on the prosecutor's office's Twitter feed.
Also arrested was Atanas Kariuki Maina, managing director of the Kenya Railways Corporation.
Opposition leaders and Kenyan economists have criticised the railway's funding for increasing the country's debt burden, which the IMF estimated at between 54-55 percent of economic output (GDP) in the 2017-18 fiscal year.
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