(Bloomberg) -- Kenya’s public prosecutor said he’d ordered the arrest of Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich and Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge over alleged irregular advance payments for the construction of dams.

Kenyan investigators questioned five of the nation’s 21 cabinet ministers in March to establish possible irregularities in two planned projects that could have cost the government billions of shillings.

“The evidence established malpractices that impacted on our public debt,” Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji said Monday in a televised speech.

Two of the projects, the planned Kimwarer and Arror dams in the Rift Valley, are estimated to cost about 65 billion shillings ($629 million), of which 21 billion shillings was allegedly given in advance payments, Haji said March 8.

To contact the reporters on this story: David Herbling in Nairobi at dherbling@bloomberg.net;Eric Ombok in Nairobi at eombok@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Helen Nyambura, Rene Vollgraaff

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