Why sacking CSs will not end graft in the Government of Kenya

For several days the apparent scandal at NYS has been on the lips of every Kenyan with access to news. But the way it has been handled has left many a Kenyan disappointed. The biggest lesson has been that the institutions mandated to fight graft have failed. And as a result, instead of focusing on the real issues and facts the scandal has been personalised, with scrutiny and condemnation directed at Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru.

The choice to focus on Ms Waiguru in a very personalised manner is the clearest indication that the relevant oversight institutions have failed.

Parliamentary oversight has failed due to MPs’ proclivity to use their committee as extortion clubs rather than a means of keeping public sector workers accountable. The threat of impeachment motions has become one of the easiest ways for MPs to extort bribes from public officials implicated in graft.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) has failed due to its inability to conduct its work outside of politics. Lastly, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has been a failure as well. It is common knowledge that there is graft in significant portions of the public service. Yet not a single high profile individual is behind bars for corruption.

Now, it is easy to chalk all this up to the lack of political will. It is also easy to then take the next step and heap blame on the Office of the President. He is the highest-ranking public official in government, and therefore should be at the forefront of fighting corruption. This line of thinking, while politically convenient, is only true to a point. The fact is that, being a political animal, the President ought not to be the face of the anti-corruption crusade. Everything he does regarding corruption will be seen through a political lens. Even when he fires his own Cabinet Secretaries over graft, the act will be interpreted in political terms – like is already happening in the case of the suspended Cabinet Secretaries.

This is a problem. To effectively tackle corruption, we must view it as both a political and law enforcement problem. Unfortunately, at the moment all we seem to care about is the politics.

If we really want to fight graft, we must go back to the basics. We have to think institutionally. We have to think about the organisational apparatus that we need to shield the anti-corruption crusade from undue political influence. We have to have a long-term view, instead of aiming for cheap high profile wins in the short-term.

How might we do this? Here is an idea. Imagine a corrupt ministry that buys basic items at inflated costs. Such a ministry would have accounting officials, procurement officers, private vendors and banks, and whole networks of political godfathers. What would be the best way to rid such a ministry of corruption?

Presently, the way we have chosen to fight graft in the public sector is to go for a high profile trophy – the relevant Cabinet Secretary. This is both politically expedient and has the potential to send a signal that it is not business as usual. But it should not be the only strategy anti-corruption crusaders have.

To expose the networks of graft in government we need to diligently prosecute the mid-level fish as well. It is the mid-level fish that know everything. They know what goes on at the top and below them. Many of them have sufficient clout to stand up against their bosses and therefore cannot be easily intimidated.

Using this strategy, we might be able to reveal, through court documents the real lords of corruption in the public sector. If the courts do not yield the requisite results, we can always then resort to sympathetic Members of Parliament. Lawmakers have Parliamentary immunity and cannot be sued for anything they say or table on the floor of Parliament. This is yet another avenue to expose the networks of corruption.

What I am proposing would be a laborious process. It would probably require a Think Tank able to pay for painstakingly long man-hours to document the trail of corruption in specific ministries and make sense of the networks that feed on this vice. But we must try. The EACC and the DPP have failed in their job. Parliament, and the Opposition within it, is tactless and prone to go for political targets as opposed to the complete networks that are bleeding the public sector dry. But it is these networks that we must go after. Individual high profile trophies should just be the icing on the cake. Remember that the suspension of the CS for Lands has not ended corruption in that ministry.