To end corruption, criminalise failure to achieve project targets

Pupils at Kinolu Primary School in Kitui County have been studying under trees after their school’s roof was blown off late last year. Mwingi North CDF has promised to rehabilitate the school. Governor Julius Malombe visited the institution last week and promised the roofing. [Photo: Paul Mutua/STANDARD]

The writing is on the wall that corruption is a nightmare for the Government. The manner in which the vice runs through the various systems of checks and balances unabated, leaves more worries to citizens. Each year, several organisations committed to accountability and transparency including the Auditor-General release reports that often question the use and misuse of public funds.

Even State agencies, right from the presidency to the assistant chiefs, have on numerous occasions publicly lamented about poor management of public funds. Consequently, threats have been issued against anyone practising corruption. Unfortunately, in spite of the threats and the many anti-graft crusades that both national government and county governments announce, reports such as the one recently released by the World Bank on how irresponsibly counties use public funds cast a shadow of the pessimism on the viability of the existing methods in curbing corruption.