Why all of us must play a role in slaying corruption dragon

A few weeks ago, I spoke at a forum on governance and painted the following picture for the audience.

“You wake up one day and find that your bank account has been mistakenly credited with Sh2 billion by KRA.

You happen to know that the systems are such that you will not be found out but, in any case, you were planning to migrate to Australia.

Hands up if you would ask the bank to return the money to KRA!” Not surprisingly, not many hands went up, and those that did were actually asking for further clarifications.

How easy would it be to transfer Sh2 billion between Kenya and Australia? one asked. It was an eye-opener, and ample proof that integrity is losing currency and corruption is winning.

VALUE-BASED LEARNING

We are investing all our energies chasing or talking about those caught with their hands in the till but we forget to see the long queue of those salivating and making a bee line for it.

A great deal has been said about creating value-based learning in schools. A curriculum that teaches children that taking what is not yours is wrong.

One that emphasises ethics and building the whole person as opposed to rote learning to pass exams. This may be what we need to do but as my father once told me: “What you do speaks so loud, I don’t hear what you say!”

When you engage in corruption and use the ‘loot’ to campaign for public office and actually win; when you engage in corruption in one department and on being found out, you are quietly transferred to another; when you engage in corruption and 20 years later your case has not been concluded but you have become very charitable, giving cash to churches; when you can sell the same land you grabbed to two or three different people using a fake titles and still walk the streets of Nairobi, and we call you ‘Mheshimiwa’; when serikali admits there is corruption and promises to ‘roast’ the big fish but we never see any effort to light the fire, would it be considered inappropriate if the children we teach the new curriculum tell their teachers to go tell it to the birds?

EXCLUSIVE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Corruption exists all over the world. But what is increasingly Kenyan is illustrated by an apocryphal story often told of two friends, a Kenyan and a Malay, who were students at Harvard University.

Both graduated, went back to their countries and later became PSs for roads.

The Kenyan visited Kuala Lumpur and his host met him at the airport in a Mercedes 600 and drove him to an exclusive neighbourhood.

As they were having a drink, the Kenyan asked him how he could afford such luxury on a civil servant’s salary. The Malay took him to the window, opened the curtain and told him: “You see that road?” There was a modern 12-lane dual carriage road. “That road I got 10 per cent.”

The Malay visited the Kenyan two years later and he, too, had a Mercedes 600 and took him to his Karen residence.

CIVIL SERVICE SALARY

Over drinks the Malay also wondered how he could afford this on a civil service salary. He took him to the window and told him, “You see that road?” The Malay retorted: “Which road?” On looking closer, he made out a path winding towards Ngong Forest. The Kenyan said: “That road, I got 100 per cent”.

To deal with graft, we must build oversight institutions to ensure it is promptly identified and dealt with.

This is what the private sector does very well and would explain why there is less corruption. The second and probably most important is taking prompt action.

Even in the coming elections, we must insist on not having people with dubious backgrounds, who cannot explain their source of wealth and who have pending cases become candidates. We must equip courts to speedily deal with graft cases. This is key in slaying this dragon.

GOVERNMENT DISCREDITED

The argument that we need more private sector people in government has been discredited as many of those caught have their roots in the private sector.

We have all sinned and fallen short of expectations and the only remedy is strong governance and timely consequences regardless of whether you are black, brown, red or yellow.

To win the war, leaders must lead from the front. Each of us must ensure there is strong governance in our sphere of influence. We must be our brother’s keeper.

Mr Gitahi is the chairman of Oxygene MCL, a communications [email protected]