Let’s do away with anti-graft commission

The sad truth is that corruption is getting deeply entrenched in our national psyche and it is becoming dangerous. Once we lose our moral conscience – which I fear we may have already severed – it will be doubly difficult to recover it. We cannot afford to continue playing games with this monster born out of our human greed. PHOTO: COURTESY

So, Mr Philip Kinisu of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) is out. Well – least surprising. The story at the commission has been as predictable as the rising of the sun and the going down of the same. As Benjamin Franklin is quoted to have said, only a fool does the same thing over again and expects different results.

 In the fight against corruption, it is certain Kenyans have deliberately chosen that path – the way of the fool. Ever since the days of Harun Mwau, graft conspirators have been ardent on ensuring that the gravy train is never derailed. Sad to say, but these schemers have always succeeded. The net result is that one commission after another is appointed but only succeeds in earning their hefty salaries before they are hounded out.

In June last year, as we prepared to appoint a new commission, I was skeptical – and expressed as much. I thus made the passionate plea in this very space that we must change tack if we ever hope to slay the graft dragon. I dared proffer the view that the fight against graft should be placed in the Office of the President. With the continued drama at EACC, I am even more persuaded of this strategy now than I was then.

Why? Because, some pundits estimate that the country loses up to thirty percent of its gross domestic product to corruption. If true, this is a staggering amount that, if conserved, would easily place us on the path to becoming a developed nation. Our taxation would be drastically reduced and cost of living lowered.

Given that the government is the single largest economic player in any nation, it follows that the management and control of this enormous graft “industry” cannot be placed in the hands of some peripheral commission, whose lifeline is held by well-connected cartels. It requires the oversight of the topmost office in the land.

With sufficient goodwill, and given the investigative and prosecutorial powers already vested in the Office of the President, it would be much easier to paralyse the schemes by graft lords conspiring to dismantle anti-corruption bodies.

As observed in my previous piece, this argument is based on the findings of studies that have shown that in general, anti-corruption strategies which merely focus on the development of appropriate laws, the strengthening of law enforcement agencies, and the establishing of government institutions, have had no appreciable effect even after decades of implementation. Indeed, this has been more than proved here in Kenya.

 Yet, this is the approach that we appear to be sold out on. In the converse, researchers in a multi-study edited by Bertram Spector, have advocated for a sectoral or decentralised approach to combating corruption, as opposed to a centralized or generalised one. They argue that such an approach offers one of the best ways of understanding corruption and developing an anti-corruption strategy.

In our context, the sectoral approach would mean that, with the President personally responsible for taming corruption, he would be given the mandate to formulate a personal strategy for achieving this objective. He would therefore have the freedom to form an anti-corruption team within his office, and pick men and women in whom he has faith to help him tackle corruption. He would therefore hold every government minister, parastatal head, and institutional leaders accountable for any allegations of corruption within their purview. Upon appointment of these state officials, each would be given a specific mandate and time frame to formulate strategies for combating corruption in their areas of jurisdiction. Likewise, county governments would be held responsible for graft in their respective dockets.

The sad truth is that corruption is getting deeply entrenched in our national psyche and it is becoming dangerous. Once we lose our moral conscience – which I fear we may have already severed – it will be doubly difficult to recover it. We cannot afford to continue playing games with this monster born out of our human greed.

Therefore, before we embark on reconstituting and establishing yet another centralised EACC, we need to think deep and hard on the way forward. Everything within me says: Unless we have something new and innovative, we have played the fool long enough. Let us dismantle EACC – it’s an unconscionable waste of resources and a pitiless graveyard for careers.