Report faults Kenya’s graft war

• Country has achieved little in tackling vice despite having strong laws, says document

Kenya ranks poorly in the war against corruption, a new report says.

The annual Global Integrity Report 2009, compiled by journalists and researchers from various states, says that despite the country having strong anti-corruption laws, little has been achieved in tackling the vice. It is also poorly ranked on transparency and good governance.

Government accountability, comprising the Executive, Judiciary and Legislature, is “very weak,” says the report which is used to evaluate governance and anti-corruption mechanisms in various countries.

The document states that roadside decrees by the Executive continue and increase during the electioneering period.

“This was evident in the run-up to the November 2005 referendum on a draft constitution, and during the 2007 electioneering when, for example, the President decreed some 30-something administrative districts into existence,” it says.

It says the problem is complicated by President Kibaki’s failure to address the media, even when his decisions are questioned as was with the reappointment of the former anti-corruption chief, Mr Justice Aaron Ringera.

The decision was later rejected by Parliament.

The report says the appointment of judges by the President had undermined the principle of transparency and accountability which, it adds, focuses more on ethnic balance rather than integrity and qualification.

The report also revisits the 2007 election fiasco, which resulted in violence resulting in the deaths of more than 1,000 people and laments that little has been achieved in peace and reconciliation.

Despite the signing of the power sharing agreement in Kenya in 2007, conflict of interest safeguards continue to be glazed over.

“In that haste, nothing was stated (in the revised constitution) concerning immunity of the president or the prime minister.”

The document says two years after Kenya’s elections, it is still unclear whether the Prime Minister is immune from prosecution.

It also accuses the Executive of continuing to operate under “a largely unenforced code of ethics that pre-dates the power-sharing agreement.”