What Kenya’s success in tackling corruption hinges on

Democracies are said to seldom go to war against each other. But democracies are everywhere at war within themselves over corruption. Although political corruption is a lesser evil compared to other threats such as violence, despotism, repression or inequalities, it is a source of tension and instability. Democracies in Africa are confronting internal tensions over claims and counterclaims of corruption. And, in election seasons, the ideology of corruption is the sharpest tool of regime change.

On the road to next year’s General Election, alleged fiddling with billions of shillings in the Ministry of Health is revealing the vulnerability of the country to corruption-related instabilities. Rightly, although through the wrong channels for diplomats, in the wake of the allegation, the American Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec publicly called for the establishment of strong mechanisms and procedures to firmly deal with perpetrators of corruption, stressing the need for “reforms … and procedures and practices like ethical training” to close the door on corruption. This is an indictment on Kenya’s anti-corruption architecture.

Corruption poses a two-fold dilemma. First is the need to consolidate institutions of democracy to effectively deal with graft. We need clarity of mind that corruption, in all its forms and guises, is a crime; it is not a moral issue. We should arrest and imprison offenders, not call in bishops and sheikhs to pray for us.

DEPOLITICISE FIGHT

The second dilemma is the urgent need to depoliticise the fight against corruption, especially during elections. Some 200 demonstrators went into the streets demanding that President Uhuru Kenyatta act on rampant corruption.

The situation got dicey when a rival group poured into Nairobi’s streets, protesting that the opposition and allied civil society and donors were sponsoring anti-government protests.

As the political battle lines over corruption become visibly clear, the intellectual and policy spotlight is turning sharply on the nexus between democracy and corruption.

One thesis is that democracy promotes corruption. In its gist, the democracy-begets-corruption thesis is that corruption and democracy are inseparable, always going hand in hand. The million-dollar question is whether corruption is the price we pay for democracy. Corruption is seen as an indicator of a deficit in a democracy. In Kenya, the pervading argument is that the democratic bliss that followed the promulgation of the new constitution has given corruption a new lease of life, enabling it to diversify and devolve to the counties. Corruption is said to expand as the dominant elite shifts resources to those sectors where it is possible for those engaged in corruption to benefit, badly haemorrhaging the economy.

BIPARTISAN CONCERN

There are legitimate reasons why corruption should be a bipartisan concern. More than $148 billion annually is lost to corruption in Africa, approximately 25 pc of the continent’s GDP. Corruption has led to Africa receiving the lowest share of foreign direct investment inflows in the world. Worse still, the continent has suffered the worst illicit outflow of finances, comprising nearly 21.9 pc out of a total $1.26 trillion illicit flows out of developing countries in the last decade.

Evidence indicates that corruption has always been an equal opportunity scourge. The need for money to fund elections has increased the chances of corruption across the political isle and drawing in international benefactors. Therefore, exclusive focus on bureaucratic corruption obscures the role of corporates and opposition elites and donors in corruption.

Frustration with democracy’s deficit in fighting corruption is giving rise to a second thesis: Authoritarian systems reduce corruption. At the core of this argument is that “strongmen” are able to take fast and firm decisions on corruption without the need to go through the legal and bureaucratic red-tapes of democratic dialogue and accountability.

ENSURED STABILITY

Singapore is ubiquitously cited as a case in point where dictatorship has successfully aided the war on corruption and ensured stability and development. This week, a message that was doing rounds on social media revealed that the Chinese government routinely takes officials and members of their families on tours of meet-and-greet the former government officials who were caught engaging in corruption in prison, a clear warning of what would befall those who sink into the malaise. Whatever its merits or demerits, this is unlikely to happen in liberal democracies.

However, Kenya’s experience is that authoritarianism cannot reduce corruption. Thus a trade-off between political rights and liberties for lower levels of corruption is not worth the deal.

This leaves us with the third thesis as the best-case scenario: Democracies reduce corruption. In one case study five years ago, the Norwegian think-tank, the CHR Michelsen Institute, concluded that: “Democracy is more important in combating corruption” than other systems of governance.

Research has also shown that the 20 least corrupt countries are all democracies. Voters can punish the government responsible for or condoning corrupt practices. Inversely, they can reward an honest government with re-election or an opposition mounting its election campaign on an anti-corruption platform.

JUSTIFYING SCHEMES

However, as its downside, the link between democracy and the reduction of corruption is giving rise to an ideologically inspired democracy promotion that is justifying regime change schemes across Africa.

The common denominator among all democracies that have managed to reduce the threat of corruption to minimal levels is strong democratic institutions. As such, Kenya’s success in tackling corruption hinges upon rationalising and consolidating democratic institutions, especially those designed to combat graft. Sadly, a warped thinking that promotes anti-corruption as an ethical issue has stifled the development of an effective anti-corruption system as in other democratic dispensations such as America.

Creation of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission as a successor to the ineffectual Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission was a seriously flawed step. The idea that a commission operating outside the mainstream investigatory, prosecutorial and judicial systems can effectively “investigate and prevent corruption” is absurd. Kenya needs a specialised government agency with investigative and prosecutorial powers and capacity to deal with corruption as a crime, but not an ethical issue.

Prof Peter Kagwanja is chief executive, Africa Policy Institute.