Integrity crisis affects whole economy

Just two years ago, Dr Davy Koech, Kenya Medical Research Institute chief exe-cutive, was named ‘CEO of the Year’ in the Company of the Year Awards (Coya), a yearly event organised by the Kenya Institute of Management. And, for the third year in a row, Kemri was named the country’s ‘Best Parastatal’.

Today, Koech and other senior officials stand accused of diverting more than Sh600 million in pension and donor funds to personal use. This is more than half the annual allocation to Kemri by Government. The brazenness of the looting, carried out over several years and detailed by the Inspectorate of State Corporations, is breathtaking: False payrolls, irregular bank withdrawals, allowance fraud and even an unprocedural pay increase for Koech.