What the NYS cases reveal to us about graft

What you need to know:

  • Kenya being Kenya, some very privileged people are known to have taken advantage of the legal ambiguities to win the tenders through proxies.
  • And as the NYS scandals have demonstrated, the equalising effect of affirmative action policies in the country extends to corruption.

  • The youth and women who get the opportunity to do business with the government want to get rich quick as well.

The National Youth Service (NYS) scandals should hardly be the butt of jokes given the huge amounts of taxpayers’ money said to have been lost.

The latest round of arrests of suspects have seen quite a number locked up in remand prison, and watching anyone losing his or her freedom for whatever reason isn’t exactly funny.

But the treacherous nature of the dealings and the diverse personalities involved means there are always little nuggets of humour here and there in the affidavits that cartoonists or comedy scriptwriters can work with.

The most memorable scene from the first episode is that of Josephine Kabura, a harmless-looking hairdresser, walking into a banking hall in Nairobi, walking out to a waiting car in the basement carrying sacks of cash in both hands and ferrying the loot to some quarry out there in Ongata Rongai.

UNLIKELY STARS

The highlight of the sequel features the flashy but equally harmless-looking Anne Ngirita and her horny police investigator-cum-business partner.

After a few hours of grilling at a boring city restaurant in the presence of the young woman’s family members, the investigating officer at some stage suggests it would be more interesting taking a statement from his tattooed-arm suspect from the privacy his bedroom.

But how did two harmless-looking young women become the unlikely stars in an intriguing Kenyan corruption saga in the first place?

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Of course, an answer can only be found upon the conclusion of the cases currently before court. But a quick scan of the courtroom the next time the suspects appear in court will offer some hints.

Apart from the senior public servants and a few "tenderpreneurship" fat cats, the rest are young people and market-type women you don’t normally associate with multi-million shilling graft allegations.

The NYS faces are a sharp contrast to the usual millionaire suspects we are used to seeing in Goldenberg or Anglo Leasing cases, for example.

But the circumstances of their troubles couldn’t be more similar. As part of efforts to address social exclusion in society, Kenya has in recent years pursued affirmative action policies to uplift the economic status of the youth and women.

EQUALISING EFFECT

The most radical of these policies is the Access to Government Procurement and Opportunities (AGPO) Act which, among other things, requires that 30 per cent of State tenders go to businesses owned by the youth, women and other marginalised groups. Kenya being Kenya, some very privileged people are known to have taken advantage of the legal ambiguities in the policy to directly benefit from the quota or win the tenders through proxies.

And as the NYS scandals have demonstrated, the equalising effect of affirmative action policies in the country extends to corruption.

The youth and women who get the opportunity to do business with the government want to get rich quick as well.