The Government has reiterated its commitment to continued implementation of the National Call to Action Against Corruption.
Some of the measures therein include requirement for Government suppliers at both the national and county level to sign a Business Code of Ethics domiciled in the Public Procurement Oversight Authority, compulsory and continuous ethics and integrity training across all levels of the public service and operationalisation of the Asset Recovery Agency.
It also includes continuous and objective lifestyle audits for all accounting officers as well Authority to Incur Expenditure (AIE) holders.
Accordingly, the Government has allocated the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) Sh4 billion which is a 43 per cent increase in funding compared to the current financial year (2016/17).
In so doing, the Government may be aiming at expanding EACC’s capacity in terms of human capital and related forensic technology implement measures in the National Call to Action. This may help EACC to bring in more resources such as investigators to advance the fight against corruption in addition to increased confidence from bilateral partners such as donors and other foreign governments.
The Bribery Act 2016, requires EACC to assist private entities, public entities and any interested person to develop and put in place procedures for prevention of bribery.
EACC has also been made the receiving entity of suspected bribery cases. This will definitely be a stretch on EACC’s current capacity and may have contributed to the increased funding. In the 2016-17 budget statement, the Government had projected to repatriate about Sh52 million as proceeds of corruption from the Smith and Ouzman case.
Willing to work
The monies were to be used to procure 11 ambulances for various hospitals. Actual proceeds repatriated were Sh577 million which the CS confirmed had been applied for the benefit of the health sector in the Arid and Semi-Arid regions of Kenya. This shows that Government is willing to work with international agencies and foreign governments to repatriate money that have been siphoned out of the country and hidden in foreign jurisdictions. These repatriations are also a clear indicator that all these efforts should result in positive results during prosecution of these fraud cases. [Moses Kuria, Senior Manager, Risk Advisory Services Deloitte East Africa]
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