Lifestyle audit must net the real thieves
NYS scandal suspects in court. Other avenues of investments must be created so that Kenyans stop inheriting corruption, from father to son, like a generational curse or a city council house. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Kenyans remain a deeply divided lot, unable to surmount the fissures of negative ethnicity.
- Despite denials from politicians, it is all about the 2022 elections.
- Top of the list is the excessive borrowing by the government that threatens to hurtle us to insolvency.
Eating rice can be dangerous! It can present a far deadlier effect than the obvious choking hazards, even bring down a government.
Shaun Raviv, a freelance journalist based in Atlanta, tells of how the government of former Malawi president Joyce Banda unravelled from such a seemingly innocuous act.
Anaphiri, a housekeeper, steals some money from her employer and retreats to her rural hometown.
She shares some of the loot with her son Sam, a known village layabout. Sam soon engages in profligate spending. He buys a mattress, a bucket and kitchen utensils, luxuries few in the poverty-stricken village can afford.
Sam takes to drinking juice with every meal instead of plain water and substitutes the local staple nsima with rice, a once-a-year luxury.
NEW-FOUND WEALTH
Soon, village chatter gets to the authorities about Sam’s new-found wealth. In a police interrogation, he reveals his mother as the source.
Anaphiri in turn admits to stealing the money. The trail ends up at her former employer’s house, where hundreds of thousands of dollars are recovered.
The lowly civil servant is part of a scam involving senior ministers and implicates the president.
Raviv’s story has a ring of déjà vu to it. Tales and trails of corruption have existed since Kenya’s Independence.
For a nation described as the most optimistic in 2003, Kenyans have risen high on the pessimism scale. To many, the President’s recent promise of a courageous fight against corruption is as remote as the sands of Chalbi desert.
CORRUPTION
The corruption fight is seen as a flashbang gimmick intended to obfuscate the real issues facing the country.
Top of the list is the excessive borrowing by the government that threatens to hurtle us to insolvency.
The infrastructural projects responsible for these borrowings have yet to yield meaningful returns.
Secondly, Kenyans remain a deeply divided lot, unable to surmount the fissures of negative ethnicity. Thirdly, despite denials from politicians, it is all about the 2022 elections.
Kenya is far more advanced than Malawi and the purchase of rice or mundane household items is unlikely to elicit any excitement. However, the similarities in the two countries’ fight against corruption remain.
JUNIOR CIVIL SERVANTS
There are those engaged in conspicuous consumption here in Kenya. These are the junior civil servants who own huge houses in the leafy suburbs.
Others include the nouveau riche suppliers with their faux hairdos and fuel guzzlers. Whilst a lifestyle audit will net a few of these, the real architects of corruption will probably get away by flashing their “get out of jail free card”.
The people we hope to see arrested are the ones who buy new choppers and own villas and numbered accounts with billions in Switzerland.
Certainly not the types who carry millions in gunny-bags and transact in cash from darkened basements.
Mr Khafafa is the vice-chairman, Kenya-Turkey Business Council. [email protected]
