Anti-corruption agency warns over ghost projects

By MWANIKI MUNUHE

KENYA: The country could be losing millions of shillings to ghost projects, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission chairman Mumo Matemu has warned.

Most affected agencies are county governments, which, Mr Matemu said, are infested by ghost workers, assets and loans among others.

Speaking to The Standard on Saturday, Matemu said some counties could be spending money on projects that are either non-existent or whose payment was already made, and completed projects that have been listed as new.

This, he said, is part of the investigations the commission is carrying out in cooperation with governors and the Ministry of Devolution to save the country from further loss of funds.

“This is a tyranny of ghosts; many governors are complaining that they are paying ghost loans, ghost workers and ghost projects and many other ghosts. For this reason, counties must audit everything on which public money is spent because what we have devolved is resources not corruption. The Ministry of Devolution is playing a key role in the fight against graft. We have also partnered with governors in coming up with a legislation that will help prevent and fight against corruption in counties,” he said.

Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero has complained about ghost projects and workers. Kidero insisted that salaries would only be paid to existing Nairobi County workers.

This comes even as it emerged suspicious personalities who may pose a security threat to the country could be taking advantage of laxity on war against corruption at the border points to bribe their way in.

Matemu admitted that EACC has no officers at the airports and seaports, including Kenya Ports Authority in Mombasa and border points.

Gangs could be taking advantage of this to bribe rogue officers and gain entry into the country.

Worrying situation

Matemu says officers from EACC go to the said points on need to need basis, especially when a corruption case has been reported.

The Interior Ministry has suspended at least 15 senior and middle level officers for allegedly receiving bribes to irregularly issue identification documents to people who turned out to be criminals.

Absence of anti-corruption officers could have contributed heavily to the worrying security situation in the country largely because chances of getting arrested for receiving a bribe are low.

Matemu blames this state of affairs on failure by the government to allocate sufficient funds to EACC to establish offices in crucial sections.

Seaports, airports and border points are the main access points for anybody trying to gain entry into the country.

“We want to be everywhere, we want to be in all border points across the country, we want to be in all airports and seaports in this country. That will be possible once we receive funding from government. We are talking to the National Treasury about this,” he said.

Matemu further said no corruption case that has been under investigation has been closed.

Dynamic strategy

“We have looked at the old cases and the new cases as well. We have challenges because we have had to balance between the resources we have been given and the cases we are going to allocate. In relation to old cases, we had the challenge of accessing evidence from outside Kenya but that has now been dealt with. On new cases, we have applied the principle of materiality. There is no petty corruption, if you do your calculations, you will notice that what people call petty corruption could be bigger than what you call grand,” he said.

The EACC chairman said his commission is developing a new and fairly dynamic strategic plan on the fight against corruption which will be ready for launch before the end January 2014.

The commission has also partnered with various government agencies, among them Kenya Revenue Authority and Association of Professional Societies in East Africa among others.

“We want to be strong on investigation and enforcement. No partnership will compromise our resolve to fight graft. We have presence for instance at Huduma Centres and we will have permanent presence in all the counties in the next five years,” he said.

During the annual meeting of East African Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities in Kigali, Rwanda, last month, Matemu was unanimously elected as President. Mr Kossy Bor a lawyer with EACC was also elected the 1st president of Asset Recovery Inter Agency Network for Eastern Africa.