Lifestyle audit clamour a stunt to placate anti-graft agitators

President Uhuru Kenyatta is received by Coast Leaders at Miritini in Mombasa County. [Maarufu Mohamed/Standard]

In late 2016, a small group of civil society actors gathered at the Freedom Corner at Uhuru Park, in a public protest against corruption. They had brought with them banners with the words, “Act now or resign,” a message directed at President Uhuru Kenyatta.

They soon encountered police who lobbed teargas at them, quickly dispersing them even before their protest had started.

In the same week, President Kenyatta convened the anti-corruption summit at State House, during which he resignedly made his now famous statement to the effect that he had tried everything in the fight against corruption, which had left him with nothing else to do.

In the campaign that led to his coming to power in 2013, President Kenyatta never promised action against corruption. Once in power, the priority issue was to save himself, and his deputy William Ruto against the International Criminal Court, before which the two faced charges at the time. In doing so, Kenyatta and Ruto enlisted the support of the Kenyan state, transforming what he had described as a “personal challenge” into a public problem for the country.

The financial cost to the taxpayer for the ICC cases has never been disclosed but would be very large. If the ICC cases were personal to Kenyatta and Ruto, official diplomacy should never have been deployed in their defence, as ended up being the case.

The classical definition of corruption is the use of public office for private gain. The circumstances under which Kenyatta and Ruto took office brought the country into a situation where their private world would come into conflict with the public interest.

Once in power, the ICC defence effort was the first corrupt activity that Kenyatta and Ruto engaged in.

War on ICC

The fawning officials who traveled to the ends of the earth in the massive diplomatic effort to save Kenyatta and Ruto were not foolish. They understood that they were doing the two a favour, by putting themselves and the public institutions in which they served, in the private service of Kenyatta and Ruto.

Having found themselves in a situation where public resources were being expended in the defence of their private cases, Kenyatta and Ruto were disarmed against holding those same officials accountable for anything, including corruption.

Arriving in power weak and vulnerable, because of the ICC cases and also because of the dodgy results in the election that brought them to office, Kenyatta and Ruto were soon confronted by a deteriorating security situation arising from the activities of Al Shabaab on Kenyan soil.

Their bumbling responses only worsened their vulnerability, and further increased the need to rely on others to work. The 2015 report, Black and White: Kenya’s Criminal Racket in Somalia, by Journalists for Justice, detailed the corrupt activities of the Kenyan military leadership in Somalia under the Jubilee regime’s watch.

The power clique that controls the Kenyan state, including its elections, allowed Kenyatta to use the state for his defence at the ICC, in return for which he was obliged to be lenient to them.

Nothing demonstrates this better than the Anglo Leasing scandal, which dates back to the Moi years but was only unearthed at the beginning of the Kibaki term in office.

As leader of the official opposition, and chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Kenyatta had played a prominent role in exposing the Anglo Leasing scandal, leading the committee in producing a impactful investigative report that anatomised the scandal and demonstrated all its linkages. However, once in office, one of the early corruption scandals in Kenyatta’s administration was the payment of a further Sh1.4 billion to Anglo Leasing.

Even if Kenyatta wanted to act on corruption, Ruto does not make it easy for him to do so. Very early into their presidency, Ruto was confronted by the stubborn Adrian Muteshi whose land in Turbo the Deputy President had taken. In a situation that rarely occurs against the powerful, the High Court ordered Ruto to pay Sh5 million as compensation to Muteshi. In any other situation, there should have been political consequences for Ruto over the Muteshi land, which was followed by another land scandal involving his Weston Hotel and a public primary school.

While these were clear cases in which Kenyatta could have acted, he did not, perhaps because to do so would have had consequences for his party. The initial logic of the Jubilee Party was impunity against the ICC. To make this possible, Jubilee allowed the blurring of the divide between the private interests of its leaders and the official public interest.

As part of this, Jubilee allowed corruption and other forms of impunity to thrive. It is now not possible for Kenyatta to act against corruption.

The presidential vapouring about a lifestyle audit is only a coping mechanism, to placate agitators like those that police repulsed at the Freedom Corner in 2016.

The writer is Executive Director KHRC. [email protected]