Now Parliament is the weakest link in fight against corruption

Reports of MPs being bribed to reject a parliamentary report on contraband sugar is not really news. Angry citizens and parliamentarians alike aren’t really surprised by the MPs being compromised; it’s a regular occurrence.

It is disappointing that the implicated lawmakers sold their conscience for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver and betrayed the people who elected them.

SH10,000

It was alleged that the MPs were each bribed in the corridors of the National Assembly with just Sh10,000 ($100) to trash the probe report by the joint Agriculture and Trade committee on the contraband contaminated sugar that flooded the local market earlier in the year.

But like many other investigations by Parliament, the outcome was predictable. The lawmakers see no evil, hear no evil. They are indifferent to the public outcry over the massive loss of public funds to systemic graft. The estimate in 2016 by then-Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission chairman Philip Kinisu was that Kenya loses a third of its annual budget to corruption.

GATHER DUST

The estimated losses then were more than Sh600 billion on a budget of Sh2 trillion; with the current Sh3 trillion budget, it could hit Sh1 trillion. That is more than sufficient to extend the standard gauge railway from Nairobi to Kisumu, construct the proposed 473-kilometre Mombasa-Nairobi dual carriageway and build a state-of-the-art Level Six hospital in each county.

The sugar report will gather dust in the dump — together with others before it, on gambling, mobile money, Ruaraka land saga, National Youth Service, Kenya Pipeline Company, Kenya Power et al.

CARTELS

Speaker of the National Assembly Justin Muturi has ordered a probe into the claims. But the public perception is that the National Assembly and the Senate have failed in their oversight roles. They have become the weakest link in the fight against corruption — perhaps worse than the Judiciary, which has been in the spotlight for a long time.

Instead of expanding opportunities of fighting corruption, the two Houses have become a liability to President Uhuru Kenyatta’s spirited clampdown on graft cartels that continue to milk Kenya’s economy with impunity.

MANIPULATE

The thought of MPs being in bed with cartels is frightening. It can cause considerable damage to the economy if they bend laws specifically to benefit the insatiable cartels. They can manipulate the budget so as to facilitate the interests of the cartels — of course not based on national needs and priorities.

Being comprised turns Parliament into a toothless dog that has lost its moral authority to demand accountability on public expenditure by the Executive. It has happened many times before.

ELECTIONS

What the Treasury did, when Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich authorised open importation of sugar, was to use a script that was widely abused to facilitate importation of commodities, particularly during elections.

During the 1992 and 1997 general elections, the Treasury created a loophole that enabled sugar barons to flood the market with imports. What was particularly striking was how quickly the sugar arrived at the Mombasa port, immediately after the Treasury issued a legal notice, implying that it was in the high seas and the loophole was to benefit the importers.

TRANSPARENCY

Before then, the government used crude directives to force all the sugar companies to shut down for annual maintenance and then the entry and sale of imported sugar was expedited.

Such issues should raise fireworks in Parliament but they don’t. The time is now for the MPs to reassert their role and demand transparency and accountability in the government’s recurrent and development budget. They must choose good over evil by supporting the war against graft and smoking out wily colleagues from the chamber.

POPULATION

The combined force of Parliament, the Judiciary and anti-corruption agencies should cause tremors and shake the foundation of corruption. They should unite in their resolve to fight graft with passion to create opportunities for economic growth and jobs for the rapidly a rising youth population.

Eliminating opportunities for fraud and abuse of office will also help to change Kenya’s image from one of the most corrupt countries to a transformative one in which transparency and accountability of public funds is a key driver of economic growth and equity.

Mr Warutere is a director of Mashariki Communications Ltd. [email protected]