Why maize and school cash thieves must be made to pay

THE PAST WEEK HAS CERTAINly been a dramatic one in the fabulously rich history of corruption and impunity in Kenya.

The big question is whether it is a defining moment in the war or just another battle, or even worse, just a political one-upmanship debacle.

It is not as if the multiplicity of maize scams of 2008 was breaking news. Several of us hammered the alarm bells month after month as political ineptitude and callous greed made the country a hostage to huge shortfalls of our staple food product and massive exploitation of what maize that was left or imported.

Whatever Agriculture minister William Ruto’s interpretation of the PricewaterhouseCoopers forensic audit, he was largely responsible for the intensity of the overall crisis.

As shortages loomed, Mr Ruto ensured the National Cereals and Produce Board would be the controlling power in maize distribution, thus locking out the formal private sector in helping to fill those widening supply and demand gaps.

THE FORMAL SECTOR WAS DENIED the opportunity to buy maize reserves directly from NCPB or to import maize directly.

Out of that came a gluttonous feeding frenzy as those on the political coat-tails used their various contacts to get NCPB to give them pieces of paper allowing them an allocation of this reserve, which they in turn sold on for windfall prices.

At the same time, it should be remembered that the Ad Hoc Committee on Food Security based in the Office of the Prime Minister was ultimately responsible for the importation of maize that came in belatedly and at a price significantly higher than the already high prevailing world prices.

As a result of all this, the majority of Kenyans, who devote 70 per cent of their expenditure on food, were paying through the nose for it, or for what little they could afford.

At one stage, the World Bank estimated that Kenyans were paying double what they should have been.

Where to from now? First and foremost, the whittling down of impunity and the move towards greater accountability has taken on a momentum which even the most articulate political gymnast will find difficult to go against or undo.

Indeed, any attempt at the latter is likely to hasten the process of the former.

Second, the way forward is the PricewaterhouseCoopers forensic audit team to be given no more than 30 days to access further material, fill the gaps in their report, and come up with clear conclusive recommendations.

It will be an insult to the majority of Kenyans for the Executive to set up yet another hand-picked committee or commission of inquiry. The facts and figures have so far been put together by a competent, professional razor-sharp external team.

Let us complete that process and be bound by it.