The President needs our support to bring back integrity in leadership

In some parts of the world, corrupt individuals are beheaded.

In others, they are heavily jailed, their bank accounts frozen or the deposits therein confiscated by the State, and they are made to pay for the rest of their lives.

We have even read stories about disgraced leaders either repairing to monasteries, for lifelong penance, or committing ritual suicide to atone for their transgressions.

It’s simple, neat, and final.

Unfortunately, none of those options are available to us.

We cannot go around beheading thieves; it is against the law. And committing seppuku would also be a crime in Kenya.

Anyone who tried suicide and failed is usually given a long time in jail to think things over. So what can we do?

It appears we have for decades taken the easy way out, and instead of fighting those criminals and ensuring they are removed from among us, we actually honour them and consistently elect them into office where they continue looting with impunity.

And when such characters are eventually charged in court, they proceed to tie the judicial system in knots for so long that they have all the time they need to launder the loot, one of the reasons why stolen money is never recovered.

Is it any wonder that we Kenyans have become so mixed up we express universal outrage when massive corruption is uncovered only to turn around and abet the same crime by going all out to defend “our sons and daughters” when caught in acts of plunder?

Not only do we accompany them to the EACC offices or to the DCI offices carrying placards in a show of solidarity, we accuse the State of persecution and claim our tribe is being targeted.

We are all agreed that runaway corruption has the potential of destroying a country.

AN ENDEMIC PROBLEM

And we are all agreed that corruption in Kenya has become a great threat to national security and to the economy.

The only thing that we do not agree upon is how to fight the menace effectively and cut off its all-embracing tentacles.

But when the government announces measures to deal with the problem, some opposition leaders and civil society activists immediately claim it is all public relations.

But is it? Must every Cabinet Secretary be hounded out of office to prove that the fight against graft is truly on?

The other day it was Anne Waiguru. Today the gun-sights are being trained on Treasury CS Henry Rotich and his Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge. When will it all end?

On Monday, President Uhuru Kenyatta admitted that graft has become endemic and outlined a number of measures meant to deal a blow to corruption.

It was an acknowledgement that most of the rot is to be found within government ministries and departments.

Among them is the requirement that all companies doing business with the national or county governments will have to adhere to a business code of conduct, and if they don’t, they will be blacklisted.

Another, which has been fronted before, is to enforce a strict lifestyle audit for staff working with tax collection agencies.

It would have helped if the same courtesy were extended to all government officials in charge of procurement, but no matter.

If we have a mind to it, this, too, will come to pass.

As for the Judiciary, the creation of more anti-corruption courts will ensure that graft cases do not drag on forever.

And commercial banks that provide money laundering services, they, too, were put on notice that if found guilty, they will be sunk.

Many of these things have been said before, but never have water-tight mechanisms been put into place to implement the penalties.

Indeed, this last will be the biggest problem, because as some pundits aver, it is not for lack of laws that graft has taken a life of its own, but lack of will to see that the culprits are punished.

By involving the Judiciary, the private sector, both Houses of Parliament, the Council of Governors, the Kenya Revenue Authority, anti-corruption agencies, as well as assorted notables from the National Executive, the President was essentially saying something very simple: We are all in this together and we have to fight the Lords of Poverty in concert.

None of us has the magic wand that will wish this menace away. Together we conquer graft, or as a country we perish.