Of integrity, devolution and economic freedom

Makueni County Governor Prof. Kivutha Kibwana during a past interview with The Standard. He has emerged as a strong champion of devolution, and Chapter Six of the Constitution on leadership and integrity as core pillars of realizing local economic development in his County. [File, Standard]

The Building Bridges Initiative identified corruption, lack of national ethos, shared prosperity and devolution as some of the issues  that need to be comprehensively addressed, for Kenya to break with past. Pervasive and endemic corruption is not due to lack of laws, institutions or international cooperation. It is domestic gross deficit of committed political resolve and ineffective law enforcement. Political rhetoric has no corresponding political action.

The true social cost of corruption cannot be measured by amount of bribes but by loss of output due to misallocation of resources, distortions of incentives and other inefficiencies. In addition to these output losses, corruption inflicts additional welfare costs in form of adverse effects on distribution of income and disregard for environmental protection. Persistent corrupt practices are scourge to commerce and good governance. It undermines the rule of law, facilitates other criminal activity, prevents businesses from identifying actual costs, creates an unfair playing field for all competitors and causes the delegitimisation of the state, leading to severe political and economic instability.