It's time to re-examine how graft is reported

What you need to know:

  • Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2013 indicates that a majority of the respondents (68 per cent) said they were willing to report incidents of corruption, while 32 per cent indicated unwillingness to do so.
  • The perception of Kenyans still points to increasing incidents of corruption in both magnitude and complexity.

Among the roles of a government is effective provision of public goods and services, and the promotion of inclusive and equitable development. Therefore, a government must be accountable to the people and corruption must be prevented.

While fighting corruption is everybody’s business and each of us must take concrete measures to counter it, there are three problematic issues over the involvement of the general public.

First, the citizens themselves are part of the problem, believing as they do that bribes are the only way to get things done. Second, some members of the public benefit from corruption and resist efforts to stamp it out.

Third, passivity by the same public in the face of endemic corruption has allowed it to thrive. If this attitude persists, corruption will be entrenched in the nascent county governments.

HIGH-RISK ENDEAVOUR

Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer 2013 indicates that a majority of the respondents (68 per cent) said they were willing to report incidents of corruption, while 32 per cent indicated unwillingness to do so.

At least 52 per cent of those who said they would not report insisted it would not make any difference, while another 37 per cent feared the consequences. Other people did not know where to report.

Tipping the authorities about corruption in Kenya is a high-risk endeavour. People have been fired, harassed, driven from their homes and even lost lives for daring to speak out about bribery and other abuses of power.

In 2012, the Commission on Administrative Justice, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, and the National Anti-corruption Campaign Steering Committee came together to form the Integrated Public Complaints and Referral Mechanism.

This platform aims at enabling State agencies to receive and refer complaints to each other. It also seeks to ease the burden of citizens moving from one office to another to follow up complaints, as reports can be lodged with any of the participating agencies.

RE-ENGINEER CORRUPTION REPORTING

The complaints and referral mechanism has also spread the services of these agencies to areas where they do not have a presence. It has contributed towards better handling of complaints, thus improving responsiveness. Transparency International is part of this platform.

Even as these structures are applied, and with the transition to devolution, the perception of Kenyans still points to increasing incidents of corruption in both magnitude and complexity.

This calls for concerted effort to improve corruption reporting. The first step would be a thorough assessment of the existing mechanisms.

The key questions should be: what have been the successes and challenges in corruption reporting? What lessons have been learnt? Any emerging best practices? To what extent have these efforts been effective in promoting the reporting of corruption? Are these institutions well-equipped to handle graft allegations?

This should lead to a re-engineering of corruption reporting to make it simple, accessible and responsive.

Mr Okendo is the head of programmes, Transparency International-Kenya.