#FRONTROW: We’re all guilty of corruption so let us stop blaming others

There are parking boys on Kimathi Street, and almost everywhere else in Nairobi, who assist motorists to quickly find free spots, as long as you’re willing to part with some currency.

Sh100 is usually adequate to thank them for leading you to a vacant space and looking out for your car. Most of them are full-grown men, but nobody calls them parking men, it doesn’t sound right for some inexplicable reason.

If you come in close to 4pm, they’ll whisper to you not to pay the usual parking fee and just give them a little extra money to give to the parking attendant. For as little as Sh150, you won’t have to worry about your car getting clamped.

In late February, Safaricom was sued after it “cancelled a multi-million dollar tender it had awarded to Mobinets SAL Ltd after it found out that the Lebanese firm bribed its employees to secure the lucrative contract,” according to a Business Daily story.

The telco maintained that the Lebanese had colluded with its employees to make sure they got the tender, and it would have none of that.

These are not government procurement types who routinely demand kickbacks to award tenders, or the hordes of tenderpreneurs roaming state offices with briefcases.

These are private sector folks who submit to private external auditors and preach integrity in every mission statement.

YOU BEAR PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

In July, human rights lawyer Njonjo Mue shocked most people by returning his driving licence and taking the driving test afresh. He paid a Sh600 bribe to get the original document 28 years ago and the guilt had been eating him, especially after the Garissa attack. “Al Shabaab may have pulled the trigger, but we all have the lives of those children in our hands,” he told NTV’s Andrew Ochieng’ while driving.

“As long as you have participated in corruption of any kind, you bear personal responsibility for the corruption that is eating away at the soul of our nation and that is now starting to kill the next generation.”

We talk about corruption in Kenya as if it is some mythical disease that only afflicts senior government officials. The same citizens who give bribes to escape traffic offences rail against graft at every opportunity while ignoring their own personal contributions to the Kenyan corruption industrial complex.

Wananchi who have no qualms about asking if you know someone in a government to speed up something they are already entitled to still harp on high-level corruption as if they were entirely blameless.

“When it comes to corruption, it is all very easy to point fingers, but one also needs to find out, how have I personally contributed to the rain that is beating us?” is Mue’s dead-on assessment.

Corruption thrives because citizens in their private capacities allow it to. Policemen would not be taking bribes if people were not offering any. But if you are happy to avoid a little inconvenience of showing up in traffic court by giving an officer “something small”, you’re exactly what is wrong with the system.

Shut up and don’t ever talk about how corruption is killing this country; you have lost all the moral authority to do so.

SLOW FADE

The parking boys’ proposition unsettles me because is that it is a slow fade. One day, you’re bribing a parking attendant to deny the county parking fees, the next day you’re taking Sh20 million from a road contractor. The difference is not just the value of the bribe or kickback; it is the culture it perpetuates, irrespective of the amounts involved. People graduate from small, seemingly excusable traces of corruption to full-blown greed and fraud.

The corrupt system is a bit like a conveyor belt, a marketplace of wheeler-dealers willing to do anything to achieve their aims. Safaricom wouldn’t need to let go of 58 employees every year for fraud if the private sector were not just as tainted.

Many of the senior bureaucrats, elected representatives and other posts in the government were private citizens at some point or other. Were they bitten by the corruption bug when they joined the public service, or did they just lack opportunities before? It is more than likely their thieving ways did not get amplified with a government job; the scale just increased but the predisposition was always there.

Transparency International ranks Kenya number 145 out of 175, not because politicians or policemen or other state officials are corrupt, but because everyday Kenyans allow them to be.

This is not intended to let dishonest public servants off the hook; they are the scum of the earth. But this is also to turn the focus back on the real drivers of corruption ­– you and I. Next time you’re pontificating about graft in Kenya, check yourself first.

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Mutahi Ngunyi gets second act online

MUTAHI NGUNYI LOVES a good circus. Though he has gone out of circulation on television and the newspaper, the good professor is using the magic of the Internet to keep the commentariat busy.

“Raila should be put on TRIAL.The JUDGE: poverty stricken LUOs. And LUHYAs craving his bondage,” he tweeted on  August 18. “CHARGE: selfishness, selfishness, selfishness.”

Many Cord supporters were upset by the tweet and let it be known that he was a tribal bigot seeking relevance. Not Homa Bay MP Gladys Wanga, though. She perfected the art of the succinct. “Poverty stricken mar meru!” she replied to Ngunyi.

It is the classic mama yako response perfected by the National Assembly’s Majority Leader, but worse.

In Luo, it means poverty stricken like your mother, but the exclamation mark at the end denotes the ferocity with which it was meant. The man who gave the country the “tyranny of numbers” was characteristically unapologetic in subsequent tweets. “The Luo Nation MUST liberate itself from the BONDAGE and poverty-producing SPELL of Odingaism. PERIOD. Is there a MOSES amongst the Luo?”

The political scientist does Twitter in a strangely interesting way, choosing certain words to capitalise and never bothering to respond to anyone.

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Love lessons from Uganda

FIRST, THE 28-YEAR-OLD Ugandan musician, Guvnor Ace, married his 68-year-old Swedish sweetheart. Then a Ugandan woman put an advertisement in a newspaper warning the public not to buy land from her husband without her consent.

One gets the distinct sense that our Western neighbours are really winning at love and related activities. How else can you explain both of these landmark events happening in the same week?

One supportive message for the unusual union came from the music superstar, Jose Chameleone. “Thank you my legend for this encouraging message, many hated on us but love conquered all and the world witnessed this when I put the ring on the woman of my life,”

Guvnor posted on his Facebook page. In the pictures, they both seem genuinely happy. One can only hope that their marriage doesn’t turn into the territory of caveat emptor notices from one spouse in the papers. Love conquers all, no?