CORRUPTION-KENYA: MPs Face Prosecution for Failure to Declare Wealth

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Joyce Mulama

NAIROBI, Sep 21 2005 (IPS) - In a bid to show its commitment to fighting graft in Kenya, the government has announced that 65 members of parliament and cabinet ministers will face prosecution for failing to declare their wealth as required by the law.

Wealth declaration is a method that President Mwai Kibaki’s government, which has been dogged by widespread corruptions in its two and a half years in office, is using to promote transparency and accountability.

“There is nothing to stop the Director of Public Prosecution from taking these officials to court and charging them in accordance with the law,” Kiraitu Murungi, Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister, said in the capital Nairobi Sep 15.

In 2003, the government built wealth declaration requirements into the Public Officer Ethics Act. The Act demands that all public officials, from the president to government messengers, declare their income, assets and liabilities including those of their spouses and dependent children. Making it mandatory for public servants to declare their wealth has often been regarded as a means to detect acquisition of wealth through corruption.

But human rights activists and anti-graft campaigners say the Act is insufficient since it provides for the information to be kept confidential after declaration.

“How can the public hold their leaders accountable when information on their wealth is kept secret? If the Act makes it criminal to reveal this kind of information, of what use is it in the first place,” Jeff Birundi, coordinator of the Name and Shame Corruption Networks Campaign, a Nairobi-based alliance of anti-graft organisations, told IPS.

Several African countries have laws that require public servants to disclose their assets, as well as publicise the information in the official gazettes or in registers open to public inspection. Others offer the information to members of the public upon request either free of charge or at a minimal fee.

Pressure has been mounting on the government to amend its law to make it compulsory for wealth declaration information to be made public. Amendments to the Act which are expected, among other things, to enable the media access the information to boost their watchdog role, will be ready by the end of the year, according to Murungi.

Last year the government made it more difficult for the media to access information it deemed classified, following revelations of a scam. The Anglo-Leasing scandal unearthed by the media in April 2004 prompted the government to come up with an order barring civil servants from releasing classified information to journalists. Those who contravened the directive would face dire consequences, said the order.

Described as the biggest scam ever in the East African country, the Anglo-Leasing scandal involves the irregular allocation of tenders and payments towards the making, among other things, of terrorist-proof passports.

The payments, totalling 88.7 million dollars, were made to Anglo-Leasing, a foreign company whose owners the government claims remain unknown.

Even though the ministers for finance and transport were implicated, they have distanced themselves from the scam, which has put the government at loggerheads with western donors. To the dismay of anti-graft groups, the government instead chose to sack four permanent secretaries from the ministries that handled the payments and asked the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate.

Although the commission lacks prosecutorial powers, the government maintains that those found guilty would be prosecuted.

Human rights activists say the government’s willingness to fight graft will be measured by how it handles the Anglo-Leasing scandal.

“It is not just a matter of sacking some four permanent secretaries. The logic of corruption in Kenya as in Africa is that no scandal involving such a large amount of money can be done without serious political backing. We want to know who was behind this and what happens to them,” Maina Kiai, chairperson of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, an independent government-appointed body, told IPS.

The government maintains that it has not reneged on its commitment to fight graft, citing its recent move to hire a British company to trace some 945 million dollars stashed in foreign bank accounts by looters over the years. The company, Kroll and Associates presented its report to the government last month.

Kibaki’s administration has yet to disclose the contents of the report. “We are still studying it before developing a plan of action,” said Dorothy Angote, a senior official in the ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.