Politics does not help war on corruption

There was a time in this country when the stigma that accompanied the suspicion of being corrupt was deterrence enough for anyone who was tempted to dip their hands into the cookie jar.

However, that changed drastically in the past decade when Kenyans fell into a Stockholm syndrome kind of daze and began celebrating corruption and worshipping the corrupt.

The war against corruption then became just a game. So mediocre is our fight against graft that we have effected more changes in the laws and leadership of our anti-graft bodies than the corruption cases prosecuted. To defeat accountability, the perpetrators of corruption use all the tricks in the book, including intimidation, bribing, and murder.

However, the latest trick is to use social media mercenaries, demonstrators, politicians, media, and at times State machinery to help subvert justice.

Take the case of the National Youth Service fiasco. No single corruption allegation raised has been responded to substantively. Instead, the country is being polarised by rhetoric aimed at diverting attention.

Sample this: Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru says she contacted CID after NYS Deputy Director Adan Harakhe informed her about his stolen Ifmis password. When did this happen and when was she notified?

Treasury Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge wrote a letter to his counterpart in Planning, Mr Peter Mangiti, raising concern about suspicious payments on May 7, 2015 — and went ahead to stop the payments. Ms Waiguru’s letter to the CID is dated June 5, 2015. So, why did it take a whole month for her to contact the CID after the attempted theft of Sh826 million? Why did NYS try to delete the suspicious transactions from the Ifmis system?

It is intriguing that Mr Harakhe, a deputy director, is the AIE holder and custodian of the NYS’ Ifmis passwords. Other disturbing questions include: What is the official role of the NYS director, Dr Nelson Githinji? Why does it appear as if everything is happening behind his back?

There is, without doubt, compelling reasons to believe that Ms Waiguru, Mr Mangiti, and Mr Harakhe have some explaining to do. Instead of responding to these questions, a campaign has been launched to divert the public’s focus. First, was a press conference where Dr Githinji, the spokesperson of NYS, said close to nothing as Ms Waiguru did all the talking.

Then we saw placard-wielding, NYS branded T-shirts-clad youths in the streets of Nairobi and Kisumu demonstrating. Those asking questions were branded enemies of progress. The Holy Grail in the ploy was to draw the President into the fight and thus make it an Uhuru vs. Raila and Cord vs. Jubilee contest, thus reducing this serious matter to mere politics.

The most subtle political manoeuvre was pulled weeks ago when MPs were roped in. Just before a local daily broke the story, MPs were hosted at the NYS headquarters in Ruaraka where they were handed NYS programmes for their constituencies. Is that not politicisation of graft par excellence? Just in case you do not get it, any programme that MPs are involved in is assured of budgetary allocation and is immune to scrutiny. The examples are CDF, Uwezo Fund, and now NYS.

The truth of the matter is that no one is against the NYS transformation. However, accountability should not suffer on the altar of dubious “good intentions”. Corruption has, since time immemorial, tiptoed in the strides of development.

Arnold Maliba is the Nairobi representative on the National Youth Council. [email protected]. @ArnoldMaliba.