President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday released 7,000 offenders who were about to clear their sentences to “open space to jail the big corrupt government officers.”

President Kenyatta asked Chief Justice David Maraga to crack the whip on the anti-corruption cases before courts and jail those he said had been stealing from Kenyans.

During Tuesday’s charged anti-corruption summit in State House in which President Kenyatta blamed different government agencies for derailing the war on graft, the Head of State promised to free up the cells for the corrupt officials.

On Thursday, President Kenyatta again said his government was committed to the war against the vice.

“Now the new CJ can go for the big guys (who are corrupt). The space is there and there is enough beans for them to eat in there,” said President Kenyatta during the Mashujaa Day celebrations in Machakos.

The President celebrated Kenyans from all walks of life that he said had liberated the country or worked to restore its independence.

He named the pre-independence fighters, those who fought against the repressive President Daniel Moi one-party rule in the 1990s, and those that fought and brought the 2010 Constitution as Kenya’s heroes.