Mutula: Change Act to give anti-graft body teeth
Justice Minister Mutula Kilonzo has lined up amendments to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Act to ensure that the body gets the powers to prosecute the corrupt.
Speaking to the Nation on Monday shortly after meeting the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee at Nairobi’s Continental House, the Minister said the Act as had been passed by MPs was unconstitutional.
“The Constitution requires that the body should have the power to enforce and ensure compliance with the chapter on Leadership and Integrity. How then, can you enforce anything without the powers to issue sanctions and to punish? This commission must be given teeth to bite,” said the Justice Minister.
The powers to prosecute will be in addition to the investigatory powers that the EACC was accorded in the Act hurriedly passed by Parliament in August last year.
The Minister has also proposed an amendment obligating public officers to work with the commission and furnish it with periodic reports on integrity within their dockets.
“Ethics is not about law, morality or faith. It is a powerful tool of management,” said Mr Kilonzo.
Mr Kilonzo also proposes a maximum of Sh500,000 fine or a maximum two-year jail sentence for any public officer who fails to “co-operate with the commission”.
The Minister also proposes that the commission be given powers to come up with disciplinary procedures.
“The Bill that I took to Parliament was mutilated beyond belief. There were deletions and mutilations. As soon as MPs finish legislating on the seven Bills, I will go back to the House with the amendments and seek to give the EACC some teeth,” said the Justice Minister.
“The nominees to this commission were rejected because of lack of passion and drive; yet the law itself has no passion; no drive!” he said about the controversy surrounding the choice of Mr Mumo Matemu, Ms Irene Keino and Prof Jane Onsongo as commissioners to the EACC.
The trio were rejected by the House Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs for lack of passion, drive and interest necessary to fight corruption in the country.
However, the House overturned the committee’s verdict. Their approval is pending before the House, with the Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka expected to table a fresh motion seeking MPs’ approval of the team.
When Parliament was debating the Bill, the MPs took their eyes off the intention of the Bill and were busy settling scores with the then director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, Prof Patrick Lumumba, who had indicted many of them in the theft of public money.
The MPs thus made the law to ensure that the commission did not have any power to issue sanctions against them.
In a country in which impunity and corruption reside in the hands and hearts of the high and mighty, the reasons for having a team with no powers to issue sanctions was the safest bet for the lawmakers.
“The way they approved the law, made nonsense of the constitutional importance of such an organ,” said Mr Kilonzo.
That August, he had unsuccessfully lobbied his colleagues against using their legislative superiority to make laws that were not only unconstitutional but also meaningless, but his calls were not heeded.
