Kibaki under fire!

By Juma Kwayera

Recent events have raised serious questions about President Kibaki’s legacy and place in Kenya’s history.

Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta once described his approach to leadership and anti-corruption war as, "hands-off, eyes-off, ears-off and mouth-off".

As President Kibaki approaches mid-term of his final five years, he has lived to this reputation by wearing the tag ascribed to him by former Official Leader of Opposition in Parliament – now the Minister for Finance, who stepped down for him in the 2007 presidential election. Kibaki, who was swept to power in 2002 promising to undo the economic mess, is under domestic and international spotlight for failing to crack the whip on corruption perpetrators.Transparency International Chief Executive Job Ogonda says Kibaki has squandered an ideal opportunity to restore credibility to his tenure.

"The President appears to act like someone who still has some political ambitions. He has sacrificed the future of Kenyan children and survival of the hungry to win the Rift Valley vote," says Ogonda.

The latest row over corruption involves Sh103 million – other estimates put the figure at Sh1.7 billion – for free primary education. The maize scandal is estimated to have cost the Exchequer nearly Sh2 billion. The Triton oil scandal is Sh7.6 billion ripoff, according to findings from independent audits.The President’s silence on mega- corruption contradicts the rousing speech he made on his inauguration when he was democratically elected in 2002. His declaration that "corruption will now cease to be a way of life in Kenya" set the tempo for fighting corruption, but it soon lost steam.

Part of the reason, says Ogonda, is Kibaki became hostage to corruption networks. "He is the only President so far who has had the opportunity to expunge corruption from Government, but he has squandered it."

His decision to stick with Education Minister Sam Ongeri and Agriculture Minister William Ruto has opened a new front as his cronies parry accusations on complicity in the vice, which since he came to power has cost the Exchequer billions of shillings in questionable deals.

Although suspects in the slimy transactions are known, including the masterminds of the Anglo Leasing financial scam, there have been no efforts to prosecute them.

East Africa Community Affairs Minister, Amason Jeffa Kingi, says integrity and political responsibility ceased to be benchmarks for good governance in the Kibaki administration. Kingi’s observations echo those of former British High Commissioner Edward Clay: "At least one member of Government has used in defence the argument that, the wrongdoing was done by their civil servants – old lags from the previous regime."

Official corruption

Others ask why the top person can be held responsible for malfeasance low down the chain of command – if a messenger takes a little something, is the minister to answer for it?"

It is such passivity that compromised attempts by former Governance and Ethics PS John Githongo to fight official corruption.

Reflecting on Government performance on corruption, the National Council of Churches of Kenya General Secretary, the Reverend Canon Peter Karanja, says little has changed.He says the rhetoric about corruption and good governance "is a circus that will keep recurring. Instead of allowing Kenyans to settle down and heal from the effects of post-election violence, the leadership is preoccupied with lining their pockets and protecting each other against the due process of the law."Despite glaring evidence of executive inertia on graft, Kibaki’s advisor on coalition management, Kivutha Kibwana, says the war on graft, which will be the defining moment in the restoration of accountability and transparency, is just beginning.

When the row over the retention of Ruto and Ongeri erupted, Kibwana justified Kibaki’s action to nullify their suspension by the Prime Minister saying the President has a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy he would be rolling out soon. But Karanja says the prospect of nearly three million children dropping out of school for missing out on free primary education funding and the failure to take action against the perpetrators of the maize scandal that exposed nearly 10 million Kenyans to hunger, raises critical questions about the Grand Coalition Government’s legacy.

On his inauguration on December 30, 2002, Kibaki stated: "One would have preferred to overlook some of the all-too-obvious human errors and forge ahead, but it would be unfair to Kenyans not to raise questions about certain deliberate actions or policies of the past that continue to have grave consequences on the present."

Karanja and Ogonda say there is little hope that the culture of due process, accountability, and transparency will be inculcated by the Kibaki administration, which the NCCK described in March, last year, as moribund. Karanja said of the Kibaki regime: "We are saddened to observe that the impression and expression of most Kenyans is that they have a moribund President and an ineffective Prime Minister." During his inauguration Kibaki promised: "The era of ‘anything goes’ is now gone forever. Government will no longer be run on the whims of individuals. The era of roadside decisions, declarations have gone." But it is during his tenure that over 200 new districts – dubbed political districts – have been created via ‘roadside declarations’.

Karanja says that what has dropped out of sight in the corruption debate is a full-scale examination of where responsibility lies in specific cases and what ministerial responsibility means.