Unspoken truths laid bare as hard questions on corruption intensify

One of the questions in the minds of Kenyans is whether the so-called broad-based duo of President William Ruto and Raila Odinga bit too much than they can chew during their joint Parliamentary Caucus at State House this week. This is in relation to the problem of alleged corruption among MPs, the constitutional proposals to entrench funds for legislators in the Constitution and the oversight role of the Senate over county funds.

On the face of it, the two top political leaders raised legitimate questions that we all know about, but that no one dares to talk about. For any Kenyan of reasonable character, they already understand that Parliament and the county assemblies are and have been houses of cards for a long while. The other two arms of government, the Executive and Judiciary are equally as corrupt if not worse. The fact that we are a stinkingly corrupt society is one reality that we cannot run away from.

The minority, whether at individual or business level who reject the vice in totality have tales of the economic and social costs of standing upright in our pre-existing socio-political environment. This column has been candid on this fact. At personal level, I long made a commitment that as for me and my family, we shall serve the Lord on this matter. My strong beliefs against corruptly driven wealth have been immortalised in my book, The Art of Money and Wealth Creation. With this disclosure, we can now delve into the subject at hand.

For avoidance of doubt, there is no news for anyone talking about corruption in government, private sector, places of worship or even within our homes. The only surprises here are the whistle blowers, the brutal force with which the message was delivered and the target audience to whom the message was addressed to. It is also true that no one can accuse either President Ruto or ODM leader Raila Odinga of ignorance on what they were talking about given their positions in government and many years in the Kenyan political scene.

In economic lingua, they were trading not only from insider information, but also would have access to perfect information not available to the rest of us. For example, the two questions on the constitutionality of the National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) and the primacy role of county assemblies as the oversight bodies over all funds available to county governments have definitively been addressed by the courts.

One then is left wondering what is it that unites all parliamentarians to go to the extremes of initiating controversial constitutional changes to protect their kitties. Furthermore, successive audit reports have raised serious accountability questions on the use of NG-CDF funds within their constituencies. The public is also a witness to legislators breathing fire and brimstone when gruelling accounting officers raise audit queries worth billions, only for the matter to quietly fizzle out when they retreat into luxurious hotels to make their final report.

In the streets, it is common to hear muted conversations of which MP is the contractor of government funded projects within their jurisdictions. Most of these projects end up been never completed or done shoddily despite gobbling millions of shillings.

Contracts on government subsidy programmes also mostly end up in the hands of legislators, senior government officials or their cronies.

Not long ago, a senior political insider mentioned to me that in this country, one does not need to bother to run for political office if the objective is to make money. All one needs to do is to find one of the elected politicians, fund their campaigns or community donations and then own them. This way, you will have created a pipeline to endless lucrative government contracts.

This brings us to the central questions of the day: what might have triggered the ODM and Kenya Kwanza leaders to bastardise their loyal troops in such a brutal manner? Can they themselves claim innocence from entanglements with the things they accuse the legislators of? Is their supposed Damascus moment a sustainable momentum to finally bring to an end the wanton plunder of public coffers in the country?

Economic literature has well documented evidence on the drivers and the complexities of dealing with corruption within an economy.

Vito Tanzi in a working paper published by the International Monetary fund in May 1998 argues for demand and supply factors that drive corruption. The demand factors include regulations and authorisations, certain characteristics of the tax system, certain spending decisions and provision of goods and services below market prices, such as government subsidies.

On the supply side, the drivers of corruption could be bureaucratic traditions, levels of public sector wages, the penalty system, institutional controls, transparency of the regulations and processes, and examples set by the leadership.

While the World Bank defines corruption as the abuse of public power for private benefit, Tanzi argues that sometimes the benefits of corruption extents to benefit one’s political party, class, tribe, friends and family among others.

Indeed, in many countries, Kenya included, proceeds of corruption go to finance the political parties. One needs not to look far to understand this. A casual survey of many of the cases under the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission radar will easily establish complex webs that connects close family members and political operatives to multi-billion scandals.

Tragically, some of the dirty money get routed through bank accounts opened in the names of innocent children by their own parents. In certain other cases, some have resulted into killing witnesses or deal-partners when they notice a loose end that can trail them into their dirty dealings. This speaks of how low the greed for corrupt money can sink someone into.

While the cost of corruption to economic growth and development is well documented, the fight against it may not be as cheap as President Ruto appeared to portray it.

Tanzi argues that the fight cannot be independent from the reforms of the State itself. For example, the fiery pushback by Parliament after the President laid the accusation on their doorstop signifies a political blood bath if the Executive does not back-off.

Maybe inadvertently, parliamentarians in their anger appeared to confirm what has been going on in the grapevine that they abandoned their mandate from the electorates to serve the whims of the Executive.

Based on the Hansards of both houses, the public now must ask tough questions like what do they know of the e-citizen conduit of plunder? What do they know of the unresolved fertiliser and edible oil scandals? What do they know of the opaque privatisation of the sugar sector? What do they know of the Adani affiliated contracts?

Extending the dragnet further, what do they know of the unresolved Covid-19 billionaires, the Mafia House and NYS I & II scandals? While we cannot appropriate blame to all members of the two houses, could part of the sitting and former members of the two houses be culpable as the two principals alleges?

For this column, the electorate must cheer the combatants to play on, take notes and deploy the emerging truth on the next ballot decisively. Sometimes, economic history will through curve balls from the most unexpected quarters to reset the socio-economic order in a society. Could this be the moment that Kenyans have been praying for?

A moment for the corrupt to start eating their own!