Githongo: Kibaki lacks the will and Raila’s hands tied behind his back

President Kibaki’s first and only advisor on war against corruption, Mr John Githongo, argues it is the honey badger season in Kenya and all the badgers have their snouts in the honey... He concludes ruling coalition lacks the will to fight graft. Here is the full interview with the former anti-graft ‘tsar’ on Friday:

Standard on Sunday: Looking at the termination of Anglo Leasing investigation by Serious Fraud Office (UK) who do you think in Kenya is responsible for the collapse of this exercise?

John Githongo: In May 2004, the Government of Kenya issued letters of Mutual Legal Assistance signed by the AG to the American, Dutch, British, Swiss and French authorities seeking assistance with the ongoing Anglo Leasing investigation. This, I believe, led to enquiries being embarked upon in those countries. In some countries, people were picked up and documentation seized. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) statement seems to implicitly express some frustration that despite so much work being done, the Kenyan Government dropped the ball and did not really want this matter to be concluded. Kenyans have a right to know through the legal channels what the SFO found out in Switzerland, Spain and in the UK, for example, and I am certain that one day we shall find out. For now, we are likely to be treated to the usual well-choreographed blame game between the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (Kacc) and the AG’s office but this will simply be a distraction from the real issue which is an administration fundamentally opposed to the real truth ever emerging with regard to this scandal...

Standard on Sunday: Do you still think the Kibaki administration will tackle the Anglo Leasing twin scandals?

John Githongo: No. Kenyans will have to grapple with this one. We have to be frank, fighting corruption is not a priority for this administration and we should not look to them to deal with this matter. The statement by the SFO is a stinging indictment on the Government’s rhetorical commitment to the fight against corruption.

Standard on Sunday: When you look back at the level of impunity that led to Anglo Leasing and its persistence, don’t you feel dejected that your recordings on tapes as well as final flight did not help slow or stop grand corruption in Government?

John Githongo: No. I don’t feel dejected. This is a long haul struggle fraught with victories and setbacks too. By 2007, corruption had started to change into an offshoot of a new energetic kind of matatu corporatism; corruption wore a suit and traded on the stock exchange via holding companies; invested in middle class urban villas and the like. Shenanigans with regard to the privatisation of public assets and brazen conflict of interest with regard to participation in share floatation, public procurement and the like had become the norm. For me an important lesson is that we must be eternally vigilant and find new creative ways to confront corruption. The most exciting development that I have sensed over the last five months here is that ordinary wananchi now recognise that corruption costs them individually; it impoverishes them; that they are poor in part because they are being robbed. This realisation is a welcome development. In the past, when we discussed issues like Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing the figures were mind boggling, there were too many zeroes to personalise the effects of that kind of theft. But now, people realise that every single Kenyan is paying and will pay for a couple of generations for scandals like Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing and the Triton affair. The next phase in the fight against corruption – and for better governance generally, will be at the grassroots. The days of basing ourselves in the city and engaging in conversations over coffee and cocktails about these things with only the media, political elite, donors and civil society are over. The real struggle is out there among the people who are increasingly aware of their plight and the reasons for it. This is a good thing. It’s great to see teachers making the linkage between their salary demands and the excesses of those with the power to grant them the increased salaries they seek.

Standard on Sunday: Kenya is now grappling with the maize and oil scandals. During your time in Government, were you privy to cases of corruption in the grain and the oil sub-sectors?

Again the oil saga involves Mr Kiraitu Murungi’s ministry, whom you recorded on tape asking you to slow down investigations into Anglo Leasing because ‘it is about us’. What is your reaction?

I wish I could say I was surprised. Kiraitu was one of the most formidable minds among a group of reformers who made many of the freedoms we enjoy today possible. He was a fundamentally decent man. Something horrible happened. It causes us to ask what happens when people join government. What does power mean in Kenya that it seems to have this utterly destructive effect on the minds of men and women?

Standard on Sunday: During your last visit to Kenya did the President, or any of his associates, try to reach out to you? Might you also have tried to establish contact with the President and his key associates?

John Githongo: I never tried to meet the President contrary to media reports. I was surprised by those reports.

Standard on Sunday: If you were to meet Kibaki, Kiraitu, former Finance Minister David Mwiraria or even former Vice President Moody Awori — the men you accused of covering up the Anglo Leasing scandal — what would you tell them?

John Githongo: Now more than ever, Kenyans are very clear in their minds about the issues relating to the Anglo Leasing scandal. Their posture as leaders is on the wrong side of history.

Standard on Sunday: There were reports while you were in Kenya that you had preferential treatment by the British to the extent you were even accorded the security of its secret service. True?

John Githongo: This is totally untrue and I challenge anyone to present one iota of evidence about this ridiculous suggestion. Those unhappy with what I was attempting to do in the fight against graft were keen to create such fictions, which are little more than silly distractions.

You left the country fearing for your life. Do you feel any safer today and are those who threatened you still in key places?

The situation has indeed changed. For example, we have a Coalition Government in place. While much remains the same, much has also changed. I think the election-related events of 2007-2008 democratised insecurity.

Standard on Sunday: You cast the image of the Kibaki regime as incurably corrupt at the top but he still won a second term. How do you feel about his return and do you see any difference between his first term and the first year of his second term?

John Githongo:I don’t think the second term was won. The 2007 election was stolen in broad daylight. I acknowledge from the evidence that has emerged that there were electoral malpractices on both sides but ultimately the presidential poll was illegitimate. The Electoral Commission, the National Intelligence Security Service, provincial administration and a wide range of agencies and individuals have specific questions to answer about what happened. This current presidential term is therefore hobbled. Coalitions are difficult to manage at the best of times but in our low trust environment, it is particularly challenging. We are thus in a situation of policy paralysis with a lot of plans being articulated but not much being done to implement them. There is not much happening in terms of reform. There are those in fact who argue that corruption is the glue holding together the coalition since it is clear its not any reform programme, ideological platform or shared values; that the kind of free-for-all ‘graft’ that is being reported about is, what keeps everyone at the feeding trough. That, this is honey badger season and all the badgers have their snouts in the honey...

Standard on Sunday: When you look at the oil and maize saga, Anglo Leasing and Goldenberg, among many others, would you say Kenya has lost the war against corruption?

John Githongo: The war is not lost but important battles have been lost. What is happening today is not so much a failure in the fight against corruption but a reverberating failure in leadership. If elected leaders and their proxies can take food out of the mouth of a starving nation in the middle of a drought, then it’s not just corruption. It is almost as if the country has been occupied by aliens, prepared to destroy those from whom they profit. It is not a sustainable situation. However, the widespread public outrage is heartening. Only sections of the urban middle class have invested in this situation and continue to defend it. They are a small and dwindling minority opposed by a growing pool of Kenyans increasingly articulating their circumstances in a non-tribal ‘us-versus-them’ way.

Standard on Sunday: Tribalism, poor governance and corruption today are said to be Kenya’s most dangerous afflictions, where and when do you think the rain began to beat us, and what should we do now?

John Githongo: When we disempowered ourselves as citizens and put our fate in hands of a small ageing group of very resolute and resilient leaders who eschew accountability. After every election we hope that we have finally got a group managing our affairs that has our interests at heart, only to be bitterly disappointed. So the current model is not working. We all have to challenge it and articulate one that is based on equity. All the really good studies that I have seen indicate that the first outcome Kenyans want from their democracy is equity, especially equity in access to justice and economic opportunity. The current model based on a trickle-down arrangement is delivering for small pockets of mainly urban groupings that enjoy preferential relations with key figures in the State. The majority is not part of the racket. Our current winner-takes-all system is based on exclusion and we need an inclusive bottom-up paradigm that provides hope for the future. This would be very different from anything Kenya has ever attempted but we have no option because the current system is in a state of failure. Even an ostensibly inclusive Coalition has brought only paralysis; in part because it is based on nothing more than a blackmail of Kenyans – tolerate us or else, blood will flow!

Standard on Sunday: What are your thoughts on the debate for or against a local tribunal to handle cases of post-election violence?

John Githongo: There is a dilemma here. On the one hand, as Kenyans, we have a duty to deal with these issues ourselves and therefore the domestic tribunal should be the ideal instrument. On the other hand a local tribunal would suffer a major credibility crisis at inception because of the prevailing low trust environment. Ideally if it were created locally, it should include credible independent international figures otherwise Kenyans will think it is yet another in a long line of commissions and tribunals created to buy time and ensure impunity is entrenched. The International Criminal Court is the last option and as signatories to the relevant international instruments Kenyans should not feel diminished if they are then subject to the processes that emerge out of these instruments. It may be helpful for the names on the Waki list to be made public at some point to allow society at large, media and civil society an opportunity to engage the issues systematically and conduct their own enquiries. Either way, no matter how painful, we will have to bite the accountability bullet. It will hurt but until we do we will remain hostages of the past.

Standard on Sunday: How are you earning a living out there? What is your day like and what exactly do you do these days?

John Githongo: I am a consultant with mainly non-governmental agencies both here (Kenya), in the UK and US.

Standard on Sunday: What are the institutional weaknesses that have failed Kenya in the war against corruption and what do you propose?

John Githongo: Setting up the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission and other such agencies was a mistake across Africa. I am partly responsible for this. While at Transparency International we lobbied hard for the creation of these expensive anti-graft agencies but across the continent they have not delivered. In Kenya, it was an emergency institution created because the AG was not prosecuting the war against graft.

If the AG does not want to prosecute graft and the President is not inclined to hold him to account as a result, then the Kacc can do nothing especially if it chooses to follow the letter of the law as opposed to the spirit of the law. Unless you fix the presidency and the AG’s office, it will remain an uphill struggle. But in truth, the greatest successes will emerge from other institutions: the media, civil society and the pressure that is now emanating from the grassroots across Kenya as outrage at the status quo gathers momentum.

Standard on Sunday: Do you think the Coalition Government is committed to ending this vice?

John Githongo: There is little evidence beyond rhetoric that it is. I fear that its inherent internal contradictions mean that even those within it who may want to deal with graft are hampered by the principle of collective responsibility and collective irresponsibility. It’s hard being collectively responsible for a disaster unfolding before the eyes of Kenyans.

Standard on Sunday: You have gone quiet on this war, could it be that you feel it is going nowhere?

John Githongo: I certainly do not intend to remain ‘quiet’ any longer though I have remained committed behind the scenes! It is just not right. But everyone has to stick his or her neck out on this one. I believe we are at an interesting time in Kenya’s history and we (could) miss the opportunity. The violence of 2007-2008 shook the entire country and subsequent developments have led to a deep disillusionment with the current state of affairs. There is a widespread awareness on the part of ordinary wananchi that we are at a pivotal moment. We can continue as we are now and go headlong into disaster in 2012 or sooner. Or we can say enough is enough and agitate for change now. If we lose the opportunity, a generation or two will be lost – forever. The beauty is that Kenyans have a recognition that we are living the moment: the moment is pregnant with both hope and dangerous possibilities.

Standard on Sunday: How much do you think corruption costs Kenya annually?

John Githongo: It is not about the amount of money lost. Africa is rich. Congo did not collapse despite Mobutu, Zimbabwe is grimly holding on...The most harmful effect of corruption is in the way it causes Kenyans to lose confidence in their institutions, their leaders and even in themselves. Pervasive corruption of the kind we have, robs Kenyans of dignity. It makes them risk their lives looting petrol from overturned fuel tankers. They question the independence and credibility of what should be sacrosanct institutions like the ECK, the Judiciary, the security mechanisms and the like which they accept as corruptible and hostage to those with economic might. It changes our value system causing people to believe that conflict of interest and graft are the ideal ways of accumulating wealth. This is unsustainable because it then divides us along ethnic and regional lines complicating our politics tremendously. It also leads to the kind of looting of the economy that is taking place right now.

Standard on Sunday: Have Parliament and the Judiciary played their role in combating graft?

John Githongo: The jury is out on this Parliament because many of its members are new. Of course, the reluctance of MPs to pay tax has severely undermined their credibility in this regard. They are likely to be held to account very quickly.

Standard on Sunday: What do you think the international community should do differently to pressure the Government to fight graft?

John Githongo: There is actually not much they can do now beyond supporting media and civil society efforts to fight graft. Any money they put into Government efforts to ostensibly fight corruption constitutes knowingly pouring their taxpayers’ money into a black hole. They have a right to do that but sometimes aid can be more dangerous than no aid. The feeding frenzy underway will lead to a deterioration of economic circumstances that shall in all likelihood increase the leverage of the international community. The way we are going, it is not hard to see us seeking International Monetary Fund assistance in the near future.

Standard on Sunday:What is your take on Kacc and its director Aaron Ringera on this war?

John Githongo: Sadly the Kacc has proved to be a hindrance in the war against graft. If you want to walk scot free send your case to the Kacc and a cloud of bureaucratic dust and legalese will be thrown up obscuring even truths that are apparent to the man and woman on the street. The war against corruption is led by civil society and journalists. In the next phase it is the outrage of wananchi that will drive it.

Standard on Sunday: You played a big role in exposing Anglo Leasing ghosts, do you think we have heard the last of it?

John Githongo: I hope not. Ghosts don’t die, that is why they are ghosts, and I have always insisted these ghosts have faces and people in this government are their good friends.

Standard on Sunday: What lessons do you think Kenyans should learn from the way the Government handled Anglo Leasing?

John Githongo: Executive accountability remains a key challenge.

Standard on Sunday: Are there examples of countries that successfully fought corruption whose strategies Kenyan can adopt?

John Githongo: As I said the most important strategy is not one about fighting corruption but one about changing what leadership means in Kenya. Even so-called ‘reformers’ join Government and fall over themselves to enter the gravy train at worst and make excuses for it at best.

Standard on Sunday: Now Raila Odinga. Last year, you said you believed he had a good track record on this war, and you could bet on him, do you still hold the same view?

John Githongo: I respect him and today view him as a boxer in a ring with his hands tied behind his back. The question is whether he should remain in the ring under those circumstances and there are of course those who ask what could be keeping him in this utterly unsatisfactory situation. But there are also leaders like (Justice Minister) Martha Karua and Jim Orengo (Lands) who are also making statements that express an exasperation with the situation of which they are integral parts. As head of the Public Accounts Committee (Deputy Prime Minister) Uhuru Kenyatta was very proactive against graft too.

Standard on Sunday: You were a strong believer in truth, justice and restitution, as well as declaration of wealth. How do you think this will help Kenya?

John Githongo: I remain a strong believer in truth, justice and restitution. There has been a lot of talk about a South African-style truth and justice commission. It cannot work in Kenya unless we were emerging from a truly horrific meltdown. I don’t think we want to go there because it will take several generations to climb out of that hole. Our circumstances are very different. A strong dose of pragmatism must inform how we proceed. Periodic declarations of wealth and liabilities would help tremendously but only if it were made public. I believe only (Vice President) Kalonzo Musyoka has dared do this.

Standard on Sunday Are you about to come back to Kenya and lead the normal life of a son of the soil?

John Githongo: I am back and have been since September. I continue to have serious external commitments that mean for some of them I can only function from outside Kenya so I travel regularly.