Scandals mark Jubilee’s four years in office

Former Lands Cabinet Secretary Charity Ngilu at the Milimani Law Courts. [PHOTO: FILE/standard]

Corruption could be the Jubilee government’s greatest undoing.

Politicians, private sector and civil society representatives say corruption has tainted President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration.

Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) Chairman Philip Kinisu recently said that besides the Sh791 million that was fraudulently paid out by the National Youth Service (NYS), the EACC was investigating other procurement irregularities totaling over Sh761 million.

Claims of impropriety have since escalated from NYS to the Youth Fund where it is believed over Sh180 million was lost to fictitious contracts.

Months ago, questions on the spending of the Eurobond money were raised.

Annual reports by the Auditor General and Controller of Budget have exposed wastage in both national and county governments.

Recently, during his tour of Israel, President Kenyatta said that it was becoming difficult to identify the positives in his government because it is swamped in graft cases.

With many corruption scandals, Uhuru in March last year submitted to Parliament a report by the EACC that listed names of top officials implicated in graft.

The Cabinet and principal secretaries on the list leading were sacked.

As a corrective measure, the Government says Sh2.24 billion of corruptly-acquired money and property has either been frozen or recovered.

At least 337 cases related to corruption are in court of which, 68 involve senior officials among them MPs, governors, Cabinet and principal secretaries.

The President said his government, working with Swiss authorities, had frozen Sh200 million held abroad in connection with the Anglo-Leasing fraud.

“We are working with other friendly governments to ensure that illegally acquired assets hidden in their countries are returned. It doesn’t matter what is acquired with the proceeds of corruption; ultimately, all will be forfeited,” Uhuru said.

But critics say the Jubilee government has only given lip-service to the anti-corruption fight.

ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi said the Jubilee administration inherited a country bubbling with pride and optimism under a progressive Constitution but has imprinted on it despondency, despair and hopelessness.

“It is amazing how every project that Jubilee has embarked on is deliberately designed for the embezzlement of public funds. As some of our friends outside this country have commented; ‘it seems that under the Jubilee government, corruption is a virtue and a genetic inheritance’,” said Mr Mudavadi.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Billow Kerrow (Mandera) said corruption was one of the biggest challenges for the Jubilee administration.

Anti-graft crusader and civil society activist John Githongo said the Jubilee coalition had raided public coffers with industrial efficiency.

“We are witnessing corruption on a mega scale and there are signs that graft is the way of this regime,” he said.