Better pension could help slay Kenya's dragon of corruption

Why we are corrupt as a country is both a moral and an economic question.

I will leave the moral part to lawyers, ethicists, religious leaders, and moral warriors, whoever they may be. 

Corruption is one of the most popular words in Kenya, more than Donald Trump’s tariffs.  In Kenya, corruption mostly refers to bribery.

Better put, it is making money without working for it. It could include inflating prices, supplying substandard goods or services, supplying nothing, or outright theft. It could be a policeman picking up a Sh50 note from a matatu or a civil servant asking for a bribe to expedite a process.

Bribing could also be used to get a job or admission to a school, and the corrupt people reading this story can add to the list. It is widely held that you can’t get anything done nowadays without bribing.  

We focus too much on the public sector. Is the private sector innocent, or is corruption less publicised? Private and public sectors interact, and there must be spillovers on both good and bad habits. More deeply, corruption refers to the snapping of our morals and being unable to discern what is good for you and the society.

A corrupt person is like a storey house without pillars. He is a risk to himself and society. But here lies the paradox: with all religion and schooling, should our morals not be deeper? Should our concern for humanity and the next generation not be higher? Where is the disconnect? Why are the schooled a danger to society?  Why do the schooled become parasites instead of the seedbed of social good? 

One of the reasons corruption thrives is that, beyond the headlines, it is seen as help, generosity, kindness, and even heroism. It fits so well into our traditional thinking. 

If you got jobs for your friends, relatives or clansmen, you are a hero; you are helping. It also dovetails with religion, helping others and the afflicted. What we think is a paradox isn’t. 

What of those denied those jobs or services? The reasoning is that you don’t know them. It is more like not stopping at an accident scene because you don’t know the victims. It takes lots of maturity to think of strangers, unknowns and our interconnectedness.

Others justify their corruption by saying that if they are not corrupt, someone else will be corrupt.   

In Kenya, corruption takes a political angle. If past regimes were corrupt, why not us? It is our time to eat.  

What amazes me is that corruption is not perpetuated by children but by adults, often well-schooled people. We can suggest that the corrupt are immature despite being adults. Who wouldn’t add a zero to 10 to make it 100? 

Mature men and women know the consequences of their actions. They know their lives on this small planet depend on others and are limited.  

Our failure to understand capitalism has driven corruption. It was never about money, it is about pursuing your interests as the society benefits and rewards you with profits.  

You take risks and pride as you innovate or take a product or service to the market. Through research, you can decide what is likely to succeed, and we reward you handsomely with profits.  Since they take no risks (beyond rare arrests), the corrupt are simply cowards. 

One other corruption driver is insecurity. Economic players want to be secure after retirement or old age.

They want to accumulate enough wealth or money to maintain a certain standard of living after retirement. 

Those aggressively taking bribes want to secure their economic future. Unfortunately, they destroy their emotional future.

Do not be cheated that the corrupt never feel guilty and that natural justice is a farce. Talk to a corrupt person in private!  If assured of a good pension after leaving the job market, there could be a lower propensity for being corrupt.  

How much effort have we taken to improve the pension system? 

There is a lot of movement, or is it noise, around health (Social Health Authority), higher education funding, housing and joblessness. Years ago, we talked of jobs. Today, we talk of internships and attachments.   

Yet, after a job, good health, good education and housing, one retires and lives longer. Pension makes a big difference in our lives.

Think of someone starting to work at 25 and retiring at 60. You have worked for 35 years. If you die at 80, the 20 years in retirement is almost 60 per cent of your working life.

Retirement should be a time of peace and happiness, a reward for having served mankind most of your life. 

We keep splitting hairs over the informal sector’s failure to pay taxes. What of this sector’s pension? How can we loop the informal sector into saving for retirement and the security that goes with it?  The corrupt try to secure the end of their lives on this planet. Why can’t we start there in slaying the dragon of corruption?