NYS: What the EACC didn’t see, then saw

Hardly 24 hours after a damning affidavit detailing how millions were allegedly siphoned from the National Youth Service was filed in court, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission issued a notice to reopen investigations into the Sh791 million scam.

What went wrong? Had the EACC not cleared the person said to be at the centre of the scandal as alleged in the affidavit a week ago in a leaked memo to State House? Maybe there is reason to believe that in light of the new developments, someone needed to look into the files.

But the reopening of the case is an indictment on the EACC and its declared war on corruption. In the court of public opinion, the EACC is suffering from another needless image crisis just when it was getting its house in order. No doubt, it will take more for it to win back the lost public confidence because the hard questions won’t go away just yet.

Some might ask: Do we need the EACC? Yes, we do. By any measure, Kenya is a land of incredible promise and great opportunity. But a staggering 250,000 jobs are lost each year because of corruption, says the World Bank. That means corruption is eating up the country’s GDP and its future. The EACC would do the country a good turn by dismantling the corrupt networks blamed for the economic haemorrhage. But that is a tough call for a discredited organisation.

Kenya has not moved away from the politics of exclusivity defined by the winner-takes-it-all mentality. Corruption feeds off this brand of politics. No wonder Kenya is increasingly becoming a country where lawmakers and leaders are perceived as irredeemably corrupt and greedy; where the ruling elite coerce and even break the law to dip their fingers in the till. As former UK High Commissioner Sir Edward Clay put it in 2006, “...the gluttony of the corrupt has caused them to vomit all over our shoes.”

Woe betide us if we don’t make the EACC not see this.