How fear of debt bred crooked millionaires in civil service

Daniel Moi, right, alongside PS in the president's office, Geoffrey Kariithi, holding table, Minister of State Mr Koinange and Charles Njonjo, watch as President Jomo Kenyatta announces his cabinet in November 1974. [File, Standard]

From the beginning, it was a cardinal sin for a civil servant to be broke. This was the cardinal gospel authored and spread by pioneers of modern Kenya. They wanted Africans who replaced Patels and Smiths in the civil service to be men of means.

This is why in 1967, the first African head of Civil service, Geoffrey Kariithi, warned the civil servants who had just been recruited in the spirit of Africanisation not to embarrass their new government.