Graft watchdog report exposes rot in Parliament

Kenya’s MPs have been accused of widespread abuse of powers and privileges in a new anti-graft watchdog report. The Transparency International report obtained exclusively by the Nation exposes abuses in parliamentary trips, vetting of executive appointees and composition of committees.

The report titled, Kenya Parliamentary Integrity Study also says Parliament’s investigatory committees had abused their powers. MPs had also used motions, including censure ones and questions in a questionable manner. The report dated Wednesday further brings into focus controversies surrounding appointments of commissioners and chief executives of various commissions.

Corruption is alleged to be rampant during the vetting of executive appointees which was introduced in Kenya for the first time when the Constitution of Kenya Review Act of 2001 was enacted. This law allowed MPs to interview and shortlist prospective candidates for appointment by the President.

It is this process that saw the appointment of the commissioners to the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights, Committee of Experts, Interim Independent Electoral Commission and Interim Independent Boundaries Commission, among others.

Some of the vetting has sparked public controversy. The President rejected one of the first nominees vetted by the National Assembly for appointment to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) because the said nominee had been a subject of a pending corruption investigation.

Person vetted

In the case of the Interim Independent Electoral Commission, the person vetted and nominated by Parliament to the position of chairperson had to be subjected to the process afresh after information regarding his personal life were tabled in Parliament thus derailing the initial short-listing exercise.

On foreign trips, the report says there is a strong perception that parliamentary committees have been spending too much time on them. In some cases, the necessity and value of some of the trips is questionable. In one instance during the 9th Parliament, a delegation of departmental committee on health travelled to Botswana ostensibly to study the country’s health system’s response to the HIV/Aids pandemic.

The trips raise concern over the inordinate size of delegations of MPs due to logistical and protocol difficulties they pose. Preparations for foreign trips entail informing the host country to make the necessary travel, security and related arrangements. “Due to the large number of parliamentary committees, it is possible that at any one time members of more than two committees are usually out on foreign trips,” the document says.

The favoured destinations of Kenyan delegations are usually the developed countries like the US, UK, Europe, Singapore and South Africa among others. Thus, the high frequency of trips to these countries has prompted some hosts to introduce stringent measures aimed at discouraging trips by Kenyans due to costs and protocol concerns.

Budgetary allocation

The report says a possible reason parliamentary trips are vulnerable to abuse is that all committees, regardless of their mandate receive the same budgetary allocation for external travel. This forces committees that may not have a serious need for travel commensurate with their mandate to organise needless and expensive trips, just to exhaust their budget allocations.

“It is therefore necessary to rationalise budgetary allocations for external travel vis-a-vis the mandate of respective committees to avoid abuse,” the document recommends. On the composition of committees there are concerns that senior party leaders use the House Business Committee to reward loyalists and punish dissenters through appointments to and dismissals from lucrative committees.

Similarly, there are claims that some MPs go to great lengths, including engaging in acts of bribery to get appointments to the lucrative committees. There are allegations that some members of parliamentary committees have used their privileged positions to harass or intimidate public officials.

Some MPs are also said to use this privilege to solicit favours such as jobs for their relatives and friends from public officials. Despite the provisions of the new standing orders praised by the report the study raised concerns that some MPs have been abusing the privilege of raising questions and introduction of motions for debate.