To end corruption, deal with scarcity mentality

[Photo: Courtesy]

A lifestyle audit is the term commonly used by forensic auditors and corporate management to describe the tests that are performed to determine if the lifestyle of an employee is commensurate with that person’s known income stream.

Last Friday, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered a lifestyle audit on all senior government officials, starting with him, going down to governors and other State Officers. Mr Kenyatta was visibly angry at the level of corruption hitting news headlines every day.

Yet the response from many people, including politicians within the Jubilee Party was surprising. Do they know something we don’t? The President was openly defied by leaders who are supposed to be on his side. In an interesting turn of events, the leader of the Opposition Raila Odinga urged government officials and those in the Opposition to support the initiative.

The question lingering in the minds of many Kenyans is; is the lifestyle audit achievable? Can the government deliver on this? Of course, if the President throws his weight behind this newly found passion to fight corruption, he will, to a large extent. After all, doesn’t he have the tools to ensure compliance with his directive?

Reciprocal interaction

In the long run, Kenyatta needs the goodwill of the people. But then, Kenyans lack the goodwill and a lot of them believe corruption is in our DNA. Given the opportunity, most Kenyans are likely to defraud the public. So everyone is waiting for their turn at the trough.

You might want to ask: why are Kenyans predisposed to corruption? Let us look for answers using an anthropological discussion that featured in a study commissioned by the European Union. In Corruption as social exchange: the view from anthropology, corruption “is a form of reciprocal interaction between people and the organisations they represent, particularly under conditions of scarcity of determinate goods, as well as of inefficient rules of access to these good’’

According to this study, corruption is a worldwide phenomenon. It works in strikingly similar ways across the world. Be that as it may, in other parts of the world, the response from the law enforcement is swift, and compliance is generally greater. In the case of Kenya - ranked by Transparency International as one of the most corrupt countries in the world- a significant contributing factor is the scarcity mentality.

Look at it this way. In most of Africa life is influenced a lot by the agrarian system. In this system, farmers are likely to store grain in a granary for drier periods when the rains have delayed or have failed and food is scarce. Pastoralist communities also keep large herds of livestock as a form of insurance. Ethnographers are likely to link the mentality of stealing from the public to an agrarian community taking advantage of opportunities because of the scarce mentality.

Natural character

Indeed, within pastoralists’ communities, cattle rustling is even praised. Young warriors who raid their neighbours are considered heroes and in some Kenyan communities, a man might not find a woman to marry if he does not show bravery by stealing from the neighbours. It is therefore easy to understand the anthropologists’ view that Kenyans are likely to steal from the public coffers, if they had the opportunity.

So the President’s plan to do a lifestyle audit is most likely going to fail because the natural character of a Kenyan might not change. The officers who are likely to implement the Presidents directive are not from another planet or the moon.

They are ordinary Kenyans who, given the chance,  will fill their “granary” to insure themselves for the future. Is it a wonder that some of the wealthiest people in our society are law-enforcement officers? Recall the revelations of millions stashed in bank accounts and the millions of M-pesa cash tranfers during the vetting of police officers?

Kenyans could only watch in awe as officers who hardly earn Sh100,000 talk of multi-million investments. Where did the officers get all that money? We kept asking. Of course to secure their freedom, lawbreakers often (shamelessly) grease the palms of officers. And who are they to say no?

For the war on corruption to succeed Kenyans must be weaned of the scarcity mentality. Otherwise, 50 years from now, we will still be singing the same song with little or no success.

Mr Guleid is a governance consultant and the chairman, FCDC Secretariat; [email protected]