We need political courage from the top in the fight against corruption

President Uhuru Kenyatta is right to decry the massive cost of hiring buses to transport passengers from planes to the arrival terminal. Each bus costs us — yes us taxpayers — Sh2 million per month.

That is about Sh67,000 per day per bus. Renting a saloon car costs about Sh3,000 per day, while a 4WD fuel and spares guzzler is about Sh10,000 per day.

Let’s be generous and put the cost (plus reasonable profit) per bus at Sh20,000 per day. This translates to Sh47,000 per day as “extra profit.” There are five buses, so this works out to Sh235,000 per day, and a total of Ksh 84,600,000 per year! Guess who gets some of these “extra profits?”

It is not enough to say that the deal is “clean,” because a contract was signed. For when it comes to taxpayer funds, the Constitution requires that funds be expended reasonably and prudently.

Taxpayers must get value for money. Anything beyond reasonableness is illegitimate and amounts to open corruption, much like the buttock allowances that “public” officers get for doing their jobs sitting in task forces, committees and commissions.

This extortionist practice is widespread. Practically every supply to the public sector inevitably has these extra costs, often shared with “public” officers. And the sharing often goes to the top.

I have friends in business who complain that to get their payments released after offering services they have to bribe the accounts clerks who then miraculously find the “missing” cheques, or get the cheques “finally signed.”

There are stories of how the plants and flowers along the highways in Nairobi would be changed every so often to facilitate “eating.” And a plant costing Sh100 by the roadside nursery would be sold to Nairobi City Council for Sh2,000! And all in the name of “beautification.”

So, too, with supplies to government offices under supply tenders. You will find that a half liter of bottled water that costs about Sh60 at a supermarket being sold to government offices at Sh400 per bottle. Why not simply send messengers each week to Uchumi to buy the water, tea, sugar, and other supplies?

And then there is the unmatchable extortion by our security forces. We witnessed Westgate live and saw how the once vaunted army proved itself little better than the police. But we should not have been surprised: For in the last 20 years or so, getting into the military became a matter of paying the recruiters. And they, of course, divided their loot upwards.

We also saw with Anglo Leasing how shady deals were conducted for military purposes, all lining the pockets of the powerful in the military.

As for the police, every law passed with a harsh custodial sentence or fine means extra dosh for the police. Increasing the fines for speeding only makes the police happier, not the country safer. And there is the “security check” at the airport, where the police are more interested in checking the vehicle insurances and minor infringements than anything else.

Now no other airport in the world, not even in the US which is the major terrorist target, has a security checkpoint as you enter the airports. Nor is there one in Addis, which should have similar Al-Shabaab concerns as we do.

Across the world, you can almost always gauge the state of corruption in a country by how many roadblocks there are on the road. One of the first things that former President Shakasivili of Georgia did in his successful fight against corruption was to eliminate road blocks. He also fired almost the entire police. He did so well that some of his key officials are now advising the Ukrainian government.

We have a serious problem with our values systems, for no matter what job we do, we try to eat from it. Changing this culture requires huge political courage and determination from the top, beyond angry denunciations and political PR games. Mr Kenyatta needs to clean house starting from all those many “Singhs” around him and scattered across the public sector.

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