Many civil servants continue engaging in private services and businesses despite concerns that this amounts to conflict of interest.

Most notable are cases where professionals like accountants, police officers, architects, teachers, lawyers and judges, use their Government jobs and titles to secure private businesses.

But with various taskforce reports and ministerial circulars proving ineffective in curbing this trend over the years, questions abound on what the remedy to double-dealing civil servants could be.

Among the latest moves to curb this trend is the proposal by the taskforce on police reforms chaired by Judge (rtd) Phillip Ransley that police officers be barred from engaging in any business that amounts to conflict of interest.

The Ransley report presented to President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga earlier this month says police officers should be locked out of the matatu and breakdown service business, which they have been manipulating with impunity.

But the Ransley Report is not the first Government document attempting to lock civil servants out of private business.

A taskforce report that barred teachers from engaging in private practice is still gathering dust at the Ministry of Education headquarters, eight years after it was published.

Popularly known as the Wangai Report, the report of the Taskforce on Student Discipline and Unrest in Secondary Schools was handed over to then Minister of Education Henry Kosgey following a wave of strikes in schools was in 2001.

The report made it so clear that teachers had contributed to indiscipline and poor performance in schools since they were running other businesses and paying little attention to students. The taskforce chaired by then Director of Education Naomi Wangai recommended that this be stopped.

Mr Apollo Mboya, the Law Society of Kenya chief executive officer, says that as much as the trend is worrying, Government reports and directives are usually ineffective since they lack clear implementation guidelines and do not stipulate penalties against the offenders.

"They can only bear fruits if there is will and a clear policy. For example, the Wangai Report could only have worked if it was incorporated in the Education Act, and if it outlined the punishment to be meted out on teachers who defy the directive," states Mboya.

The lawyer also notes that timing is important when it comes to the implementation of proposals by taskforces.

"For instance, there is a high chance that the proposals by the Ransley Report on police reforms will be implemented because it came after the massive problems encountered during the post-election violence. It also comes when a new constitution is being drafted," says Mboya.

But he notes that even after implementation, it will still be hard to track down police officers who defy the directive. Matatu owners have also expressed pessimism in the Government’s ability to outwit the officers, who they say have been freely compromising traffic rules so as to make a kill in the public transport industry.

"They should obviously be banned. But it will be very hard since the policemen usually register vehicle logbooks under their kin’s names, making it impossible to pin them down legally," says Mr Simon Kimutai, the Matatu Owners Association chairman. But he insists that a feasible solution has to be invented to save the industry from police officers.

"On the road, the officers have been totally protecting their businesses since they do not follow the set rules. Even during crackdowns on matatus, theirs enjoy booming business since they are never seized," he laments.

Our efforts to reach Education Secretary Prof George Godia for details on the implementation of the Wangai Report were futile. But Ruth Murungi, the chief public relations officer at the Teachers Service Commission, says the clause on double-dealing could either have been adopted or discarded.

"It is very clear that no teacher in Government should teach in a private school and we usually take disciplinary action on anyone who breaks this rule.

"But it is the work of the ministry to adopt reports and pick out the proposals they feel are essential. Our business is to operationalise policies extended to us via circulars, and we cannot do this if that particular proposal was not adopted," states Murungi.

Kenya National Association of Parents Secretary General Musau Ndunda says the engagement of teachers in private service has totally compromised the quality of education in public schools, yet no one is talking about it.

"|We have a situation where thousands of teachers employed by the Government either own or teach in private schools. Ironically, these teachers send their children to private schools because they know public ones spell academic doom," he says.