Wabukala: Window we have to act is small and fast shutting

EACC chairman Eliud Wabukhala during the interview with the Standard at his office in Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina.Standard]

Retired Archbishop Eliud Wabukala believes the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has over the past few days walked through the valley of death and emerged stronger, his pastoral collar unstained and his crucifix firmly in place.

In an environment that has seen the Director of Public Prosecutor’s office just fall short of calling him and his officers incompetent, Senators and MPs calling for the disbandment of the EACC, he remains defiant that the stars are finally aligning in favour of the agency he heads.

“The President has pronounced himself on the matter and you can see he really wants corruption dealt with,” Wabukala says. The current political mood, the reverend says, is like Goldilock’s porridge- just right.

“And the window we have to act is small and fast shutting. This is the time to deal with the corrupt once and for all,” he says.

There might be a shift in perception over the war against graft, but is the movement seismic enough to lead to a monumental shift in something that has been eating away at the country since independence?

In a rare interview, Wabukala, sitting in his third floor office at Integrity Centre, exudes boyish charm and confidence to the task ahead of him. At first glance it looks like the rigors of the office haven’t got to his lanky frame and ever smiling face. He exudes what could pass as naive confidence every time he talks about beating corruption.

Soft spoken

But there are odds stacked against him and the first he faced was the perception from many that the office he had committed himself to required something more than a soft spoken, liturgy reciting Archbishop. Throughout its history, the same space he now occupies has chewed and spit out a billionaire, three respected lawyers and a former judge.

“Kenyans cannot continue sacrificing people in this office for nothing. Those who have gone before me are some of the country’s best brains but have left because corruption fought back,”  he says.

Wabukala was a dark horse in the race to what was once the country’s most undesirable job. After retiring as Archbishop of the Anglican Church, it was widely expected that he would retire to the relatively peaceful obscurity of his home and perhaps sit on the board of a number of low profile boards. But that never came to pass.

“When I was still archbishop, I was in Kibaki’s campaign strategy team. We went around the country and it was during the campaign that I came to understand how corruption had eaten at us,” he says. “I took this job not for myself but for the sake of my grandchildren. Plus, no one wanted his position so I took it.”

Well connected

The 67-year old says he has nothing to lose and this makes his approach to graft fearless. Economists estimate that up to a third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product ends up in the pockets and foreign bank accounts of a few well connected individuals in what appears to be state sanctioned graft. The first half of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s second tenure has been riddled with scandals that break out almost on a weekly basis. One of these scandals was curious. It had no involvement of Wabukala’sEACC. The lead anti-graft agency in the country, it seemed, had been deliberately frozen out of the case.

“We have been with NYS for quite a long time. We identified problems within it and saw the problems coming. We told them if they don’t seal the loopholes the oncoming loss would be greater than the previous cases,” Wabukalasays. “We are happy that we have been let to concentrate on the 26 cases that are back before court from the first scandal.”

For him, the more agencies investigating graft the better. “This is a war for the second liberation of the country. The more soldiers the better.”

War at hand

Part of the problem has not been the number of soldiers, but the commitment of these soldiers to the war at hand. There have been numerous allegations over corruption even within the ranks of EACC, something that has led to a drop in the level of trust and goodwill once associated with the agency.

“We acknowledge that this is a problem and we have acted on this whenever we have evidence of such,” he says.

There has, however, been a hurdle bigger than compromised foot soldiers. “The biggest impediment in terms of our work is the courts. The courts issue orders that have crippled us on many cases,” he says.

In May, the courts sentenced former Town Clerk John Gakuo and former Local Government PS Sammy Kirui for abuse of office in connection with the purchase of cemetery land valued at Sh283 million. “This was good but the case took 8 years to prosecute,” Wabukala says.

Aron Ringera, one of his predecessors as chair of the commission once promised the nation that no one would be untouchable in the war against graft, pledging that big fish will fall in a graft purge.

Ringera did not last in the position. “Let them not give up,” he says. “I can promise you that the day of reckoning is fast approaching for the big fish,” he says. “We will push them to the very limit and make sure they feel the pain that other Kenyans are feeling over corruption.”

In his line of work though, corruption always bites back leaving collateral in its wake. Within the walls of Integrity Centre, it is widely believed that another of Wabukala’spredecessors was pushed off the bus as a result of this.

Red file

“We call it the Red File,” Wabukala says inferring to the EACC file on the multi-billion-shilling Anglo Leasing scandal. “I have nothing to lose and such matters will proceed. The Anglo Leasing file is out of our hands and is now a matter pending in court,” he says.

Sadly though, self-belief and unending faith are seldom the criteria that Kenya judges her servants. Is there anything he has achieved so far?

“My first assignment was to bring stability to this office. We had to start working as a team,” he says. He says that the political mood in the country when he took over the commission could not allow him to properly function.

“Whatever we did was interpreted as being for or against either side of the political divide. We couldn’t deal with high voltage issues. The environment matters a lot in this war.” Post the Uhuru-Raila handshake though, he says it is now all systems go.

For now though, Wabukala is captain. He says his course is set with coordinates of only one destination keyed into the EACC navigation system.

“This is a Kairos moment for us. We shouldn’t let the window close on us.”  

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