Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper quotes Archbishop Martin Kivuva as saying:

These scandals reveal that corruption is a cancer that has pervaded every sector of our society, and which the current laws have proved inadequate to address. There is therefore an urgent need to take radical action to eradicate it and give the country a new beginning."

Many Kenyans encounter corruption on an almost daily basis - from small bribes paid to police officers to mass theft from government coffers, the most recent example of which involved a scheme to get unemployed youth back to work.

Close to $80m (£61m) were embezzled from National Youth Service.

The clerics from the Dialogue Reference Group called for an amnesty for anyone who admitted to past offences and repaid what they had stolen.