The menace of corruption rages on in the grand coalition government ten months after both President Mwai Kibaki and Prime minister Raila Odinga promised to stamp out corruption in all government institutions.
In Kenya, human rights and anti-corruption groups are accusing the coalition government of ignoring its own anti-corruption campaign. They say the coalition government, elected on a platform of zero tolerance to corruption, has nothing to show form its ten months after coming to power through a power-sharing arrangement.
"There has been a complete lack of political will, a total lack of commitment on the part of the coalition to uproot graft in this country. The people who were implicated in major corruption scandals are still key personalities in high-level civil service. Nothing is new. These people are still in office. They have not been touched," Maina Kiai, former chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said.
The government's campaign message of zero tolerance to corruption has lost steam and has come under increasing attack from the media and civil society groups who are calling on the government to purge itself of corruption. Can corruption ever be eradicated from our society? Corruption can never be eradicated completely, but at least it can be control
Indeed, there is corruption in Kenya and the ramifications of it are continues state of hardships and hopelessness for the poor people of this great nation.
Of course, it is also true that sometimes the stories about corruption in Kenya are heart-renting. How can one explain for instance the corruption of the Kenyan ministers implicated in multi million Anglo leasing, goldenburg and the grand regency scandals, led by formers president Moi's close allies and his son Gideon Moi, his associate Joshua Kulei and Kamlesh Patni who was the architect of the Goldenburg scandal where they were paid over Ksh 38 billion for fictitious importation of gold. Soon after Kibaki summed office, his administration was confronted with another corruption scandal the infamous Anglo Leasing scandal in which senior ministers in his administration were implicated in the scandal.
The ministers were led by Kiraitu Murungi, Chris Murungaru and of course the vice president Moody Awori who looted from the national coffers? The billions that they alone stole and stashed away in British and Swiss banks is staggering. If these monies were to be distributed among Kenyans at home equally, it could have solved a lot of problems for many. In fact, it could have reduced the equality gap to manageable levels. But of course, this is not in line with conventional thinking. Those who dupe people are interested in only their own welfare and that is why Moi's allies have never used the money to help improve the lives of Kenyans.
There are other stories, how government officers engage in fictitious deal that makes the government lose billions of shillings. At least for now, the government is synonymous with corruption and has failed to prosecute those implicated in high-level corruption despite the evidence. Corruption is so rooted in all government institutions and senior officers in this institutions walk free.
In fact, in the military and other state corporations, corruption is endemic and senior officers engage in bribery before issuing tenders to prospective bidders.
In recent years, European capitals applied sanctions against Kenya to ensure that the government particular is forced to adopt democracy as the only credible form of self rule after decades of misrule and state institutionalized corruption, a lot of emphasis has been placed on corruption, so much so that the government have been forced to adopt large scale privatization of state-owned enterprises to avert corruption and in theory make the countries economy more viable confuses the discerning mind.
The reality is that the menace of corruption rages on even after the Government established the Kenya Anti Corruption Agency (KACA). The rise in corruption has been blamed of moving slow on corruption cases involving senior government officials, this has cost the agency its credibility and last week the agency was on the spot over its involvement in the sale of the Grand Regency hotel.
According to critics, the agency's Chairman Justice Aron Ringera has pocketed more than what he has been able to recover despite being in office for four years.
Keeping in office to recover looted monies is costing the government more than what it is seeking to recover.
What is clear though is that corruption causes problems everywhere in the world and attempts to make Kenya and Africa in particular as the stronghold of all things bad is misdirected. Economic crime are more prevalent in the grand coalition government but because of the strong economic growth, the effects of corruption are not felt as much.
Whereas a public servant could be humiliated and sent to jail for soliciting a bribe of less than $10 in the course of his work, senior ministers who loot millions of shillings get away with it.
Junior public servants are always used as experiments with tax payers money to find the best ways to tackle corruption. This is something that leaders must learn to avoid.
