KENYA-ECONOMY: State Defrauded of Billions, Says Opposition Boss

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Oct 3 1997 (IPS) - In a move likely to go down well with Kenya’s donors, an opposition leader has compiled a list of financial scams through which, he charged, over 140 billion Kenyan shillings have been stolen from the state since 1990.

That money is worth more than 2.4 billion U.S. dollars at today’s rate of 58 kshs to the dollar. It amounts to about a third of the East African nation’s external debt, which was 7.3 billion dollars in 1994.

Kenneth Matiba, leader of the opposition Forum for Restoration of Multi-Party Democracy in Kenya (FORD-Asili), made the allegation in a two-page document entitled “Financial Scandals: Theft of Public Funds 1990-1997, a copy of which was made available to IPS on Thursday. His list, which includes top government officials and business people, reads like a ‘Who is Who’ in Kenya.

Matiba, who is also a multi-millionaire businessman, said the money they stole would have been enough to give each of Kenya’s 700,000 public servants an additional 3,000 shillings per month for more than five years.

“Our teachers should have been earning double what they are earning now,” he told a packed press conference here late Thursday.

Matiba told journalists that the state-employed teachers, who began an indefinite strike here on Wednesday to demand a pay rise, would not have resorted to industrial action if the government had invested in the civil service.

Matiba’s list came just about two months after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) halted a crucial 215-million U.S. dollar aid package to Kenya on Jul. 30, accusing the government of President Daniel arap Moi of not doing enough to combat corruption in high places.

The IMF was followed by the European Union (EU) which, on Sep 19, withheld a 90-million U.S. dollar aid package to Kenya. It said it would disburse the money only after the Moi government cleaned up its act.

Matiba, who was beaten in the 1992 general elections by Moi, said the graft was occuring at a time when over 60 percent of Kenya’s 30 million population lived below the poverty line.

“The government is unable to provide basic services such as health care, roads and security,” he said. “Only a few people are able to meet their own basic needs. Today Kenya is invaded with harambee (fund raising) requests for school fees and medical bills, yet we pay tax for these purposes. Virtually every civil servant now demands a bribe before they can do their job.”

Matiba said government revenue, most of it from taxation, had increased five times in the last five years. “Since the government claims to spend most of its money on salaries — teachers’ and civil servants’ — salaries should have increased by similar proportions. Where does the money go?” asked Matiba.

He added that “the whole middle class is shrinking faster every day as their incomes are now shared with a fast-growing number of poor and unemployed relatives, friends and neighbours.”

Rumours about the alleged involvement of top government officials and business people in graft have been simmering here for some time. But Vice President George Saitoti recently dismissed such allegations as part of attempts by the opposition to tarnish the image of the government.

He told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that the government would bring to book anybody accused of involvement in corruption.