Daily Nation ­ Tuesday
Date: 11.04.2017
Page 15
Article size: 296 cm2
ColumnCM: 65.77
AVE: 142080.0
Why all of us must play a role
in slaying corruption dragon
A few weeks ago, I spoke at
a forum on governance
and painted the following
picture for the audience. "You
wake up one day and find that
your bank account has been
mistakenly credited with Sh2
billion by KRA. You happen
to know that the systems
are such that you will not be
found out but, in any case,
you were planning to migrate
to Australia. Hands up if you
would ask the bank to return
the money to KRA!" Not
surprisingly, not many hands
went up, and those that did
were actually asking for further
clarifications. How easy would
it be to transfer Sh2 billion
between Kenya and Australia?
one asked. It was an eye­
opener, and ample proof that
integrity is losing currency and
corruption is winning.
We are investing all our
energies chasing or talking
about those caught with their
hands in the till but we forget
to see the long queue of those
salivating and making a bee
line for it. A great deal has
been said about creating value­
based learning in schools.
A curriculum that teaches
children that taking what is
not yours is wrong. One that
emphasises ethics and building
the whole person as opposed
to rote learning to pass exams.
This may be what we need to do
but as my father once told me:
"What you do speaks so loud, I
On looking closer, he made out
don't hear what you say!"
When you engage in
corruption and use the 'loot' to
campaign for public office and
actually win; when you engage
in corruption in one department
and on being found out, you are
quietly transferred to another;
when you engage in corruption
and 20 years later your case
has not been concluded but you
have become very charitable,
giving cash to churches; when
you can sell the same land
you grabbed to two or three
different people using a fake
a path winding towards Ngong
Forest. The Kenyan said: "That
road, I got 100 per cent".
To deal with graft, we must
build oversight institutions to
ensure it is promptly identified
and dealt with. This is what the
private sector does very well
and would explain why there
is less corruption. The second
and probably most important is
taking prompt action. Even in
the coming elections, we must
insist on not having people
with dubious backgrounds, who
cannot explain their source of
wealth and who have pending
titles and still walk the streets
of Nairobi, and we call you
'Mheshimiwa'; when serikali
admits there is corruption and
promises to 'roast' the big fish
but we never see any effort
to light the fire, would it be
considered inappropriate if
To deal with
graft, we must
build oversight
institutions that ensure
the children we teach the new
curriculum tell their teachers
it's promptly identified
to go tell it to the birds?
Corruption exists all over the
world. But what is increasingly
Kenyan is illustrated by an
apocryphal story often told
of two friends, a Kenyan and
a Malay, who were students
at Harvard University. Both
graduated, went back to their
could afford such luxury on a
civil servant's salary. The Malay
took him to the window, opened
countries and later became
PSs for roads. The Kenyan
visited Kuala Lumpur and his
host met him at the airport in
a Mercedes 600 and drove him
to an exclusive neighbourhood.
As they were having a drink,
the Kenyan asked him how he
and dealt with"
the curtain and told him: "You
see that road?" There was a
modern 12­lane dual carriage
road. "That road I got 10 per
cent."
The Malay visited the Kenyan
cases become candidates. We
must equip courts to speedily
deal with graft cases. This is
key in slaying this dragon.
The argument that we need
more private sector people
in government has been
discredited as many of those
caught have their roots in
the private sector. We have
all sinned and fallen short
of expectations and the only
remedy is strong governance
and timely consequences
regardless of whether you are
black, brown, red or yellow.
To win the war, leaders must
two years later and he, too, had
lead from the front. Each of
a Mercedes 600 and took him
to his Karen residence. Over
us must ensure there is strong
governance in our sphere of
drinks the Malay also wondered
influence. We must be our
how he could afford this on a
brother's keeper.
civil service salary. He took
him to the window and told
him, "You see that road?" The
Malay retorted: "Which road?"
Mr Gitahi is the chairman of
Oxygene MCL, a communications
[email protected]
Ipsos Kenya ­ Acorn House,97 James Gichuru Road ­ Lavington ­ Nairobi ­ Kenya