By Andrew Harding BBC correspondent in Kenya

In the months since President Daniel Arap Moi stepped down, the country has been attempting to re-invent itself, and disturbing allegations of institutional corruption, bribery, and even murder have been surfacing.

President Moi stepped down after 25 years of autocratic rule

If you have ever had visa problems in Kenya, you will probably have ended up at a dull brown building in the middle of Nairobi.

It is called Nyayo House, just off Moi avenue, and overlooks the muggers' paradise of Uhuru Park.

The walls are plastered with official posters warning visitors of the evils of corruption. And there is a hotline number to ring if an official dares to ask you for a bribe.

Just to the right of the main entrance, a small slip road leads down into the gloom of an underground car park. It looks no more sinister than most underground car parks. But in the far corner, one of the walls is a bit odd.

It is made of metal, not brick. And if you get special permission, a policeman will come down and press a small remote control device, and a huge door will roll back in the best traditions of the haunted house.

Right now, Kenya as a country seems to be poised awkwardly on the threshold of that doorway. Everyone knows what lies behind it. But no one can decide whether it is really worth going in to take a proper look, or whether it might not be simpler to slip back upstairs.

Well, I went in. A middle-aged engineering lecturer called Peter Nding'o showed me the way. We ducked under some steel cables, tripped in the dark on some rubble, and then shone our torches down a long corridor with black doors on either side.

Torture chamber

This is - or rather was - a torture chamber. No gentler phrase will really do. Peter breathed out slowly as he walked into the tiny metal cell where he once spent two hellish weeks.

It has been alleged that thousands of Kenyans were tortured here

The shiny walls are black and graffiti prayers are scratched into the paint. Peter pointed to a metal grille, high on the wall. That is where they pumped in the air, either very hot and dusty, or freezing cold.

He went over to an electrical socket on the wall. They put wires in here, he said. And then put the other ends on my body. He twitched at the memory.

Sometimes the prisoners would be taken upstairs, a special lift went up to the 24th floor. They would be forced to strip in front of maybe 20 men, then beaten unconscious.

Back in the cells, the guards would turn a fire hose on them, then leave them ankle deep in water, in the pitch dark, for days at a time.

"We would not know if it was day or night," said Peter quietly. "I thought I would die in here."

Crushing dissent

All this happened - and it is confirmed by dozens of other victims - back in the 1980s.

President Daniel Arap Moi was busy crushing internal dissent. He has been alarmed by an attempted coup and, no doubt felt threatened by pro-democracy campaigners, fighting against his one-party state.

Many of the victims of torture have been protesting

And so lawyers, students, teachers, were all rounded up by the security forces, blindfolded, and driven down the ramp, past the tourists queuing for their visas, and into the underground car park.

Since then, a lot has happened here, the birth of multi-party democracy; economic chaos; massive corruption; and last year, President Moi's retirement after a quarter of a century in charge.

The fact that he stood down, peacefully and democratically might not seem like a big deal to an outsider. After all, he was just doing what the constitution required.

But Kenya is still a young country, and it was the first time a president has ever voluntarily relinquished power. Such things are not taken for granted in Africa.

Which is why, when the new government took over here, it hinted pretty strongly that it would leave Moi to enjoy his retirement, at his farm in the Rift Valley, complete with a handsome state pension, bodyguards, cars and staff.

Goldenburg Inquiry

But since then, things have started to get a bit more interesting.

Every morning, a couple of blocks away from the torture chamber, the crowds queue up for seats at the Goldenberg Inquiry. Even school children come in with their teachers. It is, without a doubt, the best show in town.

The Kenyan Judiciary has been under the spotlight

Goldenberg is the name given to a corruption scandal so monstrously vast that it pretty much bankrupted Kenya in the early 1990s, driving it into a spiral of debt and inflation which it is still grappling with.

In all, we are talking about several billion dollars worth of public money stolen, in a country where most people are lucky to take home 30 dollars a month.

Towards the end of the Moi era there were several feeble attempts to investigate Goldenberg. But they got nowhere. This is hardly surprising if you know anything about Kenya's so-called justice system.

I have a neighbour here in Nairobi. A local businessman involved in a couple of property disputes. He is busy bribing a magistrate right now. There is no other way, he says with an apologetic shrug. I know the other side is doing it too. I am just hoping they have paid less.

Clean-up

The lawyers act like pimps, or go-betweens, dropping off envelopes full of cash, taking their cut, oiling the wheels. It is an impressively sophisticated business.

One of the judges suspended was even nicknamed "cashbox"

And it goes right the way up through the criminal courts, the High Court, and the Court of Appeal.

Last year, as part of a massive attempt to clean up the judiciary, the government suspended half of all the country's judges on suspicion of corruption.

The newspapers even published a meticulous bribery index, listing the going-rate for dropping a murder charge, or securing a conviction on appeal. One judge was even nicknamed "cashbox".

The corruption has not stopped. Just ask my neighbour. But for the first time, the Kenyan authorities are at least trying to clean things up.

And so, the new Goldenberg investigation is being allowed to delve into some very dark corners.

Ingenious scams

And the dirt, at long last, is coming out into the open. Swiss banks, account numbers, transfer details. And the ingenious scams themselves, millions paid out in compensation for diamond and gold exports which never actually took place.

Three witnesses have already dared to point a finger of blame

Cash stolen from the central bank, massive exchange rate fiddles, endless documents stolen or shredded. And enough money moving around to subvert the entire political system.

Rather fittingly, one of the key lawyers at the inquiry, a stout, cheerful man called Gibson Kamau Kuria, is also a former torture victim, having spent some time in the dark cells of Nyayo House. He is clearly relishing the whole business.

And there is a sort of giddy atmosphere in the Goldenberg chamber. The audience is egging the lawyers on, laughing at the more ludicrous protestations of innocence, watching a quarter of a century of establishment impunity come crashing to the carpeted floor.

Three witnesses have already dared to point a finger of blame at former president Moi himself.

Witness protection

One of them is Philip Mbithi, the portly, evangelical, former head of Kenya's civil service. He has accused Moi of telling him directly to organise the illegal transfer of over five billion shillings from the treasury to the infamous Goldenberg company.

The stakes, for many rich and powerful Kenyans, are clearly very high indeed

In an almost casual aside, he also claimed that Moi kept suitcases full of cash behind his desk to hand over as gifts to people who came to see him.

It is all sensational stuff. The newspapers here are full of even juicier rumours about the existence of video tapes showing senior officials taking bribes. And as always, corruption is fighting back.

Several witnesses are under police protection. Some lawyers have been threatened. The stakes, for many rich and powerful Kenyans, are clearly very high indeed.

But where is it all leading?

Moi - it must be stressed - has not been charged with anything. No doubt his lawyers would tear much of the evidence against him to shreds in a proper court. But it may well never come to that.

Brutal murder

Moi himself insists that he knows absolutely nothing about either the torturing, or the missing billions, or the brutal murder of his own foreign minister, Robert Ouko. He was killed back in 1990.

President Moi has strenuously denied any involvement

At the time, an outside investigation concluded that his death might be linked to corruption within the Moi regime.

In person, Moi seems genuinely exasperated about all this muck-raking. I rather spoiled a garden party he was holding recently to launch a new charity, by daring to ask him how it was possible he could know so little about the murkier side of his rule.

He is not an articulate man. He spluttered with indignation, and later, catching my eye, slammed his fist angrily into the palm of his hand.

And that was, pretty much, my last day's work in Kenya. An appropriate note to end on after four fascinating, sometimes nerve-racking, years.

I have no idea what will happen to Moi. A very well-placed source in Nairobi told me the government was working on a cunning plan, a deal whereby Moi and his family would be left alone, in return for a little help in tracking down some of the missing billions.

But that assumes the government itself - a rather shaky coalition - goes the distance.

As for Kenya, well journalists have an annoying habit of drifting into countries for a short spell, and then making grand pronouncements about how the place is going to the dogs, or laughing all the way to the bank.

The reality is usually more messy. On a continent crowded with wars and refugees, Kenya stumbles quietly on. Anti-corruption posters on the walls, tourists on the beaches, and some ugly truths hiding in the basement.

From Our Own Correspondent will be broadcast on Thursday, 22 April 2004 at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.