RIGHTS-KENYA: Fury Over Deletion Of ‘List Of Shame’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Achieng'

NAIROBI, Jul 20 2000 (IPS) - A civil society group has accused the Kenyan parliament of legitimising corruption, following this week’s parliamentary vote to strike out a list of names implicated in corrupt practices from one of house committee documents.

The majority vote ensured the exclusion of a list names of senior individuals in the government, and public corporations heavily implicated in corrupt practices, which has ended in the loss of huge amounts of public funds.

Some 83 out of 146 members of parliament, voted in favour of the deletion of the ‘list of shame’, which had been submitted by legislator Musikari Kombo, who heads the Anti-corruption Parliamentary Committee, earlier appointed to investigate alleged corruption in government offices.

The remaining 73 legislators both from the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the nine opposition parties represented in parliament were absent, during the crucial vote.

“If the names of the people mentioned as corrupt are expunged from the anti-corruption report, what remains of the report?” wonders Kivutha Kibwana, who heads the National Convention Executive Council (NCEC) organisation.

Kibwana told journalists here that although some MPs gallantly voted against corruption, he considered the parliament, as a whole, having voted to support corruption. “We shall remember the eighth parliament as a house of shame,” he said.

“The 83 who voted to delete part of the of the anti-corruption report will remain smeared with shame for the rest of their lives. NCEC calls upon Kenyans to reject them in the next general elections.”

A number of high ranking officers in the government, including the vice president George Saitoti and close relatives of president Daniel arap Moi, were implicated in the list.

Powerful trade minister Nicholas Biwott, who was also implicated in the yet-to-be resolved February 1990 murder of former foreign minister Robert Ouko, also featured in the list.

The ‘list of shame’ fell short of including president Moi, with who the ‘buck stops’ according to opposition legislator James Orengo, but who technically is protected by a clause in the constitution that places the head of state ‘above the law’.

Prior to the parliamentary vote, a number of MPs had complained that some powerful individuals were tampering with the original anti-corruption report at the government’s printing press, and had tried to remove key sections from it.

The sections involve, what has come to be known as the ‘Goldenberg scandal’, in which an Asian businessman, Kamlesh Pattni, along with other high ranking government officials have been implicated in defrauding the government of a whooping 5.2 shillings, through fake exports of diamonds.

This amount far exceeds the value of tea, coffee and horticultural produce, Kenya’s chief exports combined, even though the East African country is not a producer of diamonds.

For Kibwana, the vote was a blow for Kenyans, because it rendered parliament ‘sterile’ in terms of action on social justice. “It is impossible for this government to fight corruption, because they are addicted to it to the extent that they cannot fight it,” said Kibwana.

Ochieng’ Khairalla who heads the National Youth Movement says the parliamentary vote against the ‘list of shame’ was a tragedy of immense proportions for Kenyans, because ‘parliament has gone on record as an accomplice to corruption’.

“It is clear that parliament has lost the moral authority to run public business,” he said.

Parliament, one of the three government organs, and the body charged with the responsibility of enacting legislation, currently is dominated by Kenya African National Union (KANU) members, who occupy 117 out of the total 219 parliamentary seats.

KANU, whose members are implicated most in the ‘list of shame’ maintains that the aim of the anti-corruption report, was to forgive those involved in past corrupt practices, through a new economic crimes law.

The Kombo anti- corruption report is not the first key public document to be ‘doctored’, according to NCEC, to ‘forgive those guilty of past corrupt’ practices.

Other such reports include the ‘truth and reconciliation’ report in which the government was heavily implicated in land clashes in the Rift Valley province, in which thousands of people were killed and thousands of families, mainly from ethnic communities opposed to president Moi’s rule, were displaced.

The Njonjo land commission report, also according to NCEC, was altered to pardon those guilty of land ‘grabbing’ .

Many Kenyans say deep-rooted corruption in public offices, is abetted by top political leaders and tops the list of problems effecting the Kenyan economy, which has been on its knees in the last decade.

“Corruption is the genesis of all our troubles in this country, and the system abets it,” charges Kasujaa Onyonyi, a media consultant here.

Kibwana agrees. “In Kenya and any other African country, corruption will never be dented if the chief executive does not send a strong signal that corruption will not be tolerated,” he says.

“If the top demonstrates zero tolerance against corruption, all other political and public service leaders will toe the line. Simple.”

This attitude has been explained by the way in which most public holders accused of abuse duties end up retaining their offices, or even appointed to even higher posts.

One such case is that of Water minister, Kipng’eno arap Ng’eny, who has denied charges of abusing office when he was head of the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications, eight years ago.

The corporation lost some 186 million shillings, during his tenure in office.

(one US dollar is equal to 75 shillings).

The minister has publicly stated that he has no intention of resigning from the current office, despite the charge.

Another minister, Julius ole Sunkuli, also one of the senior members of president Moi’s cabinet, has also retained his post despite a court case in which he is charged with raping a minor in his office and fathering a child by her.

The minister, who has denied the rape charges says the girl, has described his relationship with the girl as ‘an affair’ and charges that she was not a minor when it happened. Few think the minister will be convicted of the offence.

There are also disappointments that the ‘dream team’ appointed to fix the country’s economic problems by fighting graft have failed to deliver on their mandate, nearly a year later.

The team, headed by former head of Kenya Wildlife Services, Richard Leakey, was appointed to head the corruption-ridden civil service, a move that brought much hope for an economic recovery.

The team was appointed at the request of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank which have, since July 1997, suspended their aid to Kenya.

The team, has however been unable to deal with corruption, a problem to which some attribute to lack of political will.

The current scenario in Kenya, some say, leaves Kenyans the only alternative of ‘mass action’ similar to the kind that took place in 1997, which forced Moi’s government to accept to change sections of the constitution to accept multi-party politics as opposed to a one party system.

“When we cannot trust even the parliament to make the right decision, peaceful mass action is the only alternative when the government stands in the way of change,” says NCEC’s Cyprian O’Nyamwamu.