Fighting graft difficult because of relationship between corruption and competition for political power
What you need to know:
We have multiple institutions that form our integrity system and infrastructure, including the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Auditor General, the Judiciary, the Public Procurement Authority and parliamentary committees.
But the transition away from entrenched corruption has been hampered by the absence of robust political competition.
"It’s our turn to eat.” This was the gist of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s utterances during the funeral of former Maasai kingpin William ole Ntimama.
It reminded me of a paper I read several years ago by Melissa Thomas, a scholar and one of the leading authorities on the subject of corruption and politics in Africa.
In hungry Africa, she argued, corruption is analogised as food. She went on to give several examples of African proverbs and sayings to make the point that African leaders have mindsets that condone corruption and promote the culture of eating.
She quoted a West African proverb, “A goat must eat within the circumference of the location where it is tethered”, which suggests that “eating” at one’s workplace is no offence.
Here in East Africa, one of the most popular sayings is that “you only eat where you work”, betraying the mindset that implies that “eating” and engaging in corrupt dealings within the parastatal or government department where you work is no big deal.
President Kenyatta put it this way: “Swallowing saliva is not the same thing as eating meat…keep on salivating, but we will continue eating”. Majority Leader Adan Duale put it this way: “We are at State House eating meat”.
In hungry Kenya, we complain loudly about inequitable sharing of the “national cake”.
Politics is reduced to a zero sum game between greedy, arrogant insiders on the one hand and equally greedy outsiders waiting for their turn at the feeding trough.
OUTSIDERS EXCLUDED
Indeed, the reason politics in this country remains a high-stakes affair is because the outsiders are excluded from the eating party until after the next elections. This is why our politics is a boring and repetitious game. Once you are elected and graduate to become an insider, you climb to the top of the roof and kick away the ladder.
From this vantage point, any person trying to join you at the top or daring to criticise you is promptly dismissed as “an anti-development agent” engaged in siasa mbaya that begets maisha mbaya.
It did not surprise that Mr Julius ole Namalae, who is the bishop of Life Ministries Church in Narok, was treated as though he was preaching heresy after he spoke at Mr Ntimama’s funeral. The bishop argued that the priority for the Maasai community should be to seek unity and political empowerment before seeking “development”. He received a tongue-lashing from President Kenyatta, who described his views as “stupid”.
With the elections around the corner, and with the political elite in the mood of starting to unleash handouts to peasants, the last thing they want to hear are views such as those of Bishop Namalae.
The narrative as we approach the elections must be “development”, defined as mammoth harambees at which huge stacks of bank notes are ostentatiously displayed before bewildered rural dwellers.
The elite prefer to deal with peasants who respond to their benevolence and to politics of patronage, those who clap and say “Hallelluya!” at fundraising gatherings where the nouveau riche contribute millions of shillings “from myself and friends”.
MONEY SOURCE
Nobody questions the source of the money even when the benevolent leader’s name has only recently been in the news in connection with corruption scandals.
We in Kenya do not get enraged about corruption. We only become outraged when the fruits of corruption and patronage are not shared according to our expectations and when the public officials being hounded for corruption are not from our tribe.
In this country, as in the rest of Africa, people seek political power, not to implement programmes to benefit the society, but to hand out benefits in the form of jobs and lucrative contracts to their relatives, tribesmen, and political allies.
Do we have any political parties that represent competing ideas and policies for the future? No. What we have are structures created by the elite and the eating chiefs for the purpose of capturing State resources for members of their ethnic communities, allies, and cronies.
Fighting graft in this country is difficult because of the symbiotic relationship between corruption and competition for political power.
We have multiple institutions that form our integrity system and infrastructure, including the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Auditor General, the Judiciary, the Public Procurement Authority, and parliamentary committees.
But the transition away from entrenched corruption has been hampered by the absence of robust political competition. The basic cause of corruption in this country is politics of patronage.
