Corruption is big word for big people: This is what it means for little people

What!? Ati they paid how much for a biro? We gleefully marvel at the new Guinness record for the price of a pen in the latest corruption fiasco.

We wonder how some previously unknown individual was able to sell overpriced stationery to the see-no-evil procurement department at XYZ state body.

The conversation inevitably turns to daydreaming about how some people could get so ‘lucky’ in finding the pot of gold at the end of the government rainbow.

These bureaucratic masterminds and their external agent a.k.a Mr TP (tenderpreneur) appear to have mustered the gain without the pain.

You might say but what do the TPs of this world have to do with me? I am just a simple, God fearing employee.

But we are all missing the point — it has everything to do with you and it’s no laughing matter.

Let me tell you a modern-day fable about embezzlement.

EMBEZZLEMENT

In 2009, the former premier of Malaysia Najib Razak created a state investment fund to ostensibly encourage economic development.

Over the next few years, he successfully raised billions of dollars for the mega fund known as 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

In 2016, the United States Justice Department made a shocking claim about a person codenamed ‘Malaysian Official 1’, linked to a payment of $681 million made directly from 1MDB into Mr Najib’s personal account. And that was the just tip of the iceberg.

If you don’t know what a Birkin is let me educate you.

A specimen of this Rolls Royce of handbags recently sold for more than $280,000 in London (Please note, the expense of this one accessory could support 192 Kenyans for a year!).

Ms Rosmah, the wife of the scandal-ridden Najib owned 284 Birkins! The maths is mind-boggling.

The Birkin is to Rosmah Mansor what shoes were to Imelda Marcos.

BANKER

The shenanigans of Mr Najib & Co tipped the country into its highest level of debt in 60 years.

Each Malaysian man, woman and child now owes approximately $8,000 (Sh800,000) to external creditors. Let’s be real this state of affairs could not have been achieved without the collusion of the ‘innocent’ private sector players.

Lessons in Corruption 101 will tell you first you need to find a way to get the money and then to store it. In other words, find yourself a banker.

This shouldn’t be too difficult. As sharks are drawn to blood, financial institutions are drawn to money.

In the Malaysian example, Goldman Sachs, the well-known investment banker, pocketed close to $600 million fees for raising funds, then later claimed to have no knowledge the money was being siphoned.

SPENDING

In nearby Singapore, a major regional financial hub, penalties of $29 million were levied on eight banks including UBS, Standard Chartered, Coutts and Credit Suisse, for their role in abetting money flows related to the proceeds of this fraud.

The second lesson in my future text, “Corruption for Dummies”, is that that your ill-gotten proceeds should be spent to buy nice things for yourself, your family and newly-begotten BFFs.

These niceties are usually to be found in the private sector through retail shops, private-jet lessors, real estate brokers and so on.

On the converse side, this provides ample opportunities for the sellers of such goods to display some understandable curiosity.

The total amount stolen of $4.5 billion should have created a splash in this select group of luxury vendors.

Why did the brokers of the $250 million super-yacht, the one or two Picassos and Monets, and the multimillion-dollar homes imagine these transactions were completely kosher?

The whole lot seem to have suffered short term blindness occasioned by the flash of the dollar signs in their eyes.

TAXES

The official salary of the Malaysian Prime Minister is approximately $5,700 a month, hardly enough to afford the $27.3 million 22-carat pink diamond necklace he is said to have gifted his wife.

Even if he had saved literally every cent he earned it would have taken him 399 years — beyond his lifetime, to amass this amount.

On May 9, Malaysians voted to topple the de facto ruling party since independence and the government of PM Najib Razak and install 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad.

My dear Kenyans, you work hard and pay taxes, which collectively go to the Exchequer in order to provide all of us with decent affordable schools, life-saving healthcare when we need it, an army to defend us or better roads to take our produce to the big city.

TAKE ACTION

This is not a game happening between giants at a stratosphere beyond the comprehension of us midgets.

It’s theft from you and me, directly from our wages, the VAT we pay, county licenses and other levies.

You might as well have been pickpocketed in broad daylight, robbed at gunpoint in your house or have funds mysteriously disappear from your bank account. It all amounts to the same.

Don’t be a sellout to Mr TP. The express beeline to riches seems attractive but at what long-term expense?

Corruption is a big word that affects little people, like you and me.

The author is the Managing Partner of C.Suite Africa a boutique management consultancy. [email protected]