Blame game dominates summit on graft

An anti-corruption conference meant to come up with ways to deal with graft on Tuesday turned into an occasion for President Uhuru Kenyatta and his government officials to defend their turf against allegations of incompetence, and also blame others.

The summit at State House, Nairobi, was for stakeholders to discuss the country’s continued poor ranking on the corruption index. Instead, the Head of State cut a frustrated look as the officials brandished the same placard of “I have done my part”.

“If there is one issue that has frustrated me, it is this issue (of corruption),” President Kenyatta told an audience that included civil servants, diplomats, activists and a matatu driver. “And I will say why: Because the pressure is on me.

“Show me any administration since Independence that has taken action on corruption as I have done. I have removed everybody. I have done my part, at a great expense also — political — by asking these guys to step aside. I have taken the actions that I can take, within the Constitution.

“When we sit down, and I challenge all the agencies here, they say ‘we don’t have the resources, we don’t have this and that’. I challenge them here to stand up and say we have been denied the resources we need.”

He was referring to the suspension of some officials, including five Cabinet Secretaries, appointment of Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) officials, the provision of funds and granting the Judiciary the independence it needs. He said he would pardon all the chicken thieves to create more space for the corrupt in the prisons.

But from the outset the summit, the seventh in a series hosted by the President at State House, looked like a review of an anti-graft report card.

FRUSTRATED BY JUDGES

Attorney-General Githu Muigai, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keriako Tobiko, Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Ndegwa Muhoro, EACC Chief Executive Halakhe Waqo and Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) Director Muthoni Kimani all argued that they were frustrated by judges.

“There is abuse of the judicial process, which must be fixed,” said Ms Kimani, whose organisation freezes suspects’ properties thought to have been obtained by false means. “There is application upon application…and there is no high-profile Kenyan who has been charged without falling sick.”

To her, the suspects have used courts to challenge her authority and some have sent her threats. Her boss, Prof Muigai, too, absolved his office of blame.

“It has been suggested that the entire chain is broken,” the AG said. “From where I sit, it is not broken. I think the weakest link is in court. The truth is, if you have 600 cases and you have only three being resolved every month, then there you have the weakest link.”

These agencies, together with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), are known as the Multi-Agency Team (MAT), meant to work together on investigating and prosecuting graft merchants and freezing their assets.

This year alone, the government allocated Sh2.8 billion to the EACC, Sh2.1 billion to the DPP and Sh300 million to the Financial Reporting Centre. But critics argue that they have failed.

“You definitely have to identify which responsibility belongs to who,” said Mr Waqo, whose agency investigates suspects before filing evidence with the DPP. “I cannot jail people but I can investigate…right now I have 500 cases very high up the ladder.”

Mr Tobiko said he had taken 823 people and 22 firms to court on serious corruption charges, 474 of them high-profile — five CSs, six Permanent Secretaries, four governors, two senators, nine MPs, 16 senior county officials and 17 parastatal heads.

When questioned on the probability of jailing them, Mr Tobiko said: “The problem is the inordinate delays in concluding these cases.”

But the Judiciary passed blame back to him, with Justice Paul Kihara, the president of the Court of Appeal, arguing that the cases are mostly weak.
“The investigations in many cases is appalling,” said Justice Kihara.