Kenya still corrupt as hell

Mahatma Gandhi once said that he “would go to the length of giving the whole parliament a decent burial, rather than put up with the corruption that is rampant." I would like to have the same burial for the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), which has so far achieved completely nothing, while at the same time guzzling hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s money. While we are at it, let us also get rid of all anti-corruption bodies, which seem to do nothing but waste our hard-earned shilling. Alternatively let us have these bodies in place but replace the current tired good for nothing personnel with others who actually want to work.

Even though the term corruption is abstract, it is a multi faceted evil, which can economically grind a country to a halt. The one big thing which corruption feeds on is tribalism. The (mis)use of tribe and tribalism by the ruling class has contaminated the people’s mindset, which judge the status of an individual on his capability to flout the law to favour them. This is one of the reasons why corruption is no more viewed by people with abhorrence in Kenya. Leaders who have been sacked due to corruption or who are facing corruption charges, continue to have wide range of support, both from people within the government and from their tribes. Just like the slogan “najivunia kua mkenya” recently launched by the government spokesperson Dr. Alfred Mutua, transparency, responsiveness, accountability, probity in public life and good governance are now only slogans. They sound hollow and mean nothing.

President Mwai Kibaki, apart from sloganeering has never taken a definite stand against corruption. His failure to take a principled stand against corruption has clouded the system to the extent that it is now difficult to understand whether the system is alive or dead.

Impunity is on track and people get away with all acts of corruption. A good example is Prof. George Saitoti who has now been forgiven all his sins in spite of granting 15 per cent export compensation to Goldenberg International for non-existent gold. The judgement sounds cheeky and out of sync with the reality. It simply tells Kenyans to forget the 160 billion shilling Goldenberg scandal and the two billion poured into the Bosire Commission to investigate it.

Even after the seemingly cheeky judgement, nobody seems to care. It looks like undemocratic rule since independence has made people so immune to corruption that they have learnt how to live with the vice even though the cancerous growth of this malady may finally kill them. It has become a way of life. There is widespread impression that failure of integrity is not uncommon among ministers and that some ministers, who have held office during the last three years have enriched themselves illegitimately, obtained good jobs for their sons and relations through nepotism and have reaped other advantages inconsistent with any notion of purity in public life. They are a network of mafias virtually running a parallel Government pushing the state apparatus into irrelevance. There has been a rapid spread and growth of criminal gangs, drug mafias, smuggling gangs and economic lobbies in the country, which have over the years developed an intensive network of contacts with bureaucrats, government functionaries at local level, politicians, media persons and strategically located individuals in non-state sector. Some of these syndicates have also international linkages including the foreign agencies. We all remember Anglo-leasing and Goldenberg scandals with their international contacts.

The government is the reflection of a nation. It is therefore understood that government leader’s mirror the collective consciousness of all the people. The head of the government is President Kibaki and it is upon him to keep the country’s collective consciousness on track. If he does not uphold the said consciousness or disintegrates and makes it negative, people will fail to behave according to the natural law. This in turn will lead to problems of corruption. President Kibaki has failed to lead the fight against corruption from the front. Sloganeering without taking real action against corruption will never succeed. Of course, he or anti-corruption bodies alone cannot finish the vice, but it is upon the president to create an atmosphere conducive for such bodies to operate. Currently, the atmosphere is dense with the vice, which makes one wonder if the government has any tactics of tackling it. Refining the system of administration to make it difficult for corruption to penetrate is very important. The one and only attempt to do this was the purge, which took place in the judiciary. That however, was the beginning and the end of such action.