Kibaki's government under criticism for backsliding in its war against corruption.

The president, his deputy Moody Awori and cabinet ministers presented their wealth declaration forms to the speaker of the national assembly Francis ole Kaparo.

However, Kenyans will not know how much their president is worth - the information contained in the wealth declaration forms will remain confidential and will only be accessible to the anti-corruption police during investigations into corruption cases.

Mr Kibaki warned those who failed to declare their wealth by Tuesday would be severely disciplined as they would be deemed to be abetting corruption.

The president's National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) government won a landslide election in December 2002 with a pledge to fight widespread corruption.

The World Bank has promised to restart lending to Kenya, with its President James Wolfensohn praising the country's renewed fight against the vice.

The Bank, and its sister body, the International Monetary Fund, cut off the flow of money in 2001, after what they saw as the refusal by the previous government to take action against all-pervasive corruption.

'Adequate resources'

When he handed in his forms, President Kibaki lamented that corruption had eroded the country's resources and hampered its ability to undertake development programmes.

"This few months I have been in government, I have known that the government has adequate resources to carry out what we want, were it not for corruption," said President Kibaki.

The Narc government has come under heavy criticism recently for backsliding in its war against corruption.

Over the weekend, there was an outcry over an alleged irregular allocation of government houses to prominent people, including cabinet ministers and senior officials in the judiciary.

"Ghost workers"

Mr Kibaki's government replaced that of Daniel arap Moi's Kanu party, which had held power ever since independence four decades ago.

John Githongo: Kenya's graft tsar

Mr Moi himself had been in the top job since 1978, and was widely blamed for exacerbating the culture of corruption that has crippled Kenya's economic development.

The new government has taken steps to improve public finances, promising to boost tax collection and strip out the thousands of "ghost workers" added to the books by corrupt civil servants to pad their pay packets.

It also appointed the head of Transparency International's Kenya chapter, John Githongo, to lead its fight against graft.