NAIROBI, July 6, 2008 (AFP) - Kenya's Finance Minister Amos Kimunya on Sunday said he will never resign over an alleged hotel sale scandal amid growing pressure for him to leave the cabinet.

In an unprecedented move last week, parliament voted a no-confidence motion against Kimunya after allegations of corruption in the sale of a luxury Nairobi hotel. Kimunya denies any wrongdoing.

'One thing I am not prepared to do and I will not do, I will not resign. I will rather die than resign,' Kimunya told a rally in central Kenya.

He added that he would however resign from parliament if Attorney General Amos Wako accused him of corruption.

Kimunya, 46, has been at the helm of East Africa's largest economy since 2006 and is seen as a member of President Mwai Kibaki's inner circle.

He is suspected of having undervalued the Grand Regency Hotel in a sale conducted by the government last month.

Under Kenyan law Kibaki can fire Kimunya if he refuses to resign. Parliament has said it will not accept any government business handled by the embattled minister.

Some government documents suggest the hotel was sold for 1.8 billion shillings (28 million dollars/18 million euros) but Kimunya maintained during his defence in parliament that it was sold for 2.95 billion shillings.

The issue, which has sparked national outrage, has split the fragile coalition government made up of Kibaki's Party of National Unity and Prime Minister Raila Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement.

Commentators have predicted that the scandal-tainted exit of a close Kibaki ally could shake up the fragile government coalition formed as a result of a February 28 power-sharing agreement.

After general elections in December, then opposition leader and pre-poll frontrunner Odinga had accused Kibaki of rigging his way to re-election.

The dispute sparked protests and a cycle of ethnic violence and revenge killings that left at least 1,500 people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands, but ended in the power-sharing deal in which Kibaki kept his job and Odinga was named prime minister.