Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga during the interview at his Opoda farm home in Siaya County on March 21, 2015. PHOTO | TOM OTIENO | NATION MEDIA GROUP
By EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA
Cord leader Raila Odinga has accused President Uhuru Kenyatta of sleeping on the job in the fight against corruption.
Mr Odinga paints a grim picture of the country’s anti-graft campaign, saying it was apparent that the institutions that are supposed to tackle the vice had failed.
He says despite highly publicised declarations by the President that corrupt government officials will be punished, no action had been taken against those implicated in multi-million-shilling scandals and powerful individuals accused of grabbing public land.
In an interview with the Sunday Nation at his Opoda home in Siaya County on Saturday, the opposition chief said the Jubilee leadership was playing public relations with corruption which had morphed into a “national crisis”.
“There is no commitment to fight corruption by the top Jubilee leadership. The cancer continues to spread but there has not been any attempt to address the matter since the Jubilee Government took over,” said Mr Odinga who described President Kenyatta’s executive as “rotten”.
His argument is that an executive whose members have a history of corruption or are involved in the vice cannot be trusted to lead the anti-graft campaign.
According to Mr Odinga, failure by the President to take concrete action had fuelled corruption mainly in government tenders and grabbing of public land whose leases were expiring.
“We are experiencing a complete system failure. The Executive is rotten. The Legislature is more rotten. The anti-corruption commission is rotten. It is a dangerous situation,” he said in the morning interview.
ARE BENEFICIARIES
According to Mr Odinga, the Jubilee coalition was incapable of tackling corruption because its members are beneficiaries.
Secondly, the Opposition leader thinks that the Uhuru-Ruto Government is glaringly incompetent, low on substance but strong in public relations.
“On PR and propaganda I will give them an A-minus. On substance and delivery of things that can improve the lives of Kenyans, I give them a D-plus,” Mr Odinga said.
He called for the disbandment of the Mumo Matemu-led Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission saying it had failed to deliver on its mandate. The commission has been entangled in wrangles lately with two of its commissioners petitioning the President to sack Mr Matemu for alleged malpractice.
However, Mr Odinga faulted the move, saying the commissioners should have petitioned Parliament to set up a tribunal to probe the matter.
“The commission is supposed to be independent of the President. By writing to him, the commissioners were suggesting that the commission takes instructions from the Executive.”
The former Prime Minister said that being a businessman, the President is “fully aware” of the corruption networks in government that were brokering kickbacks in mega contracts.
“The President is not naïve. I have told him that his legacy will be based on his performance. Not rhetoric. It is not enough to give warnings. He accepted that there was corruption in his office and declared that heads will roll. No heads have rolled.”
Just this month, the President repeated that corrupt government officials will be dealt with.
Earlier in January, President Kenyatta sounded a warning to inept and corrupt public officers saying they will be fired. He cautioned that laziness and graft would not be entertained and that those not willing to work hard were free to go home.
“There are so many young and educated Kenyans who are willing to replace such government officers,” he said.
And as part of his effort to address graft in public tendering, the President on March 6 ordered that matters of procurement be handled online to ensure transparency and ordered an audit of tenders awarded for the two years that Jubilee has been in power.
Mr Odinga spoke amidst concerns by key voices in the private sector, international community and civil society about what appears to be unprecedented high levels of corruption in government but also disturbing official inaction.
Members of the civil society and trade unions have threatened mass action if the President does not come up with a strategy to fight runaway graft. They claim that 20 mega scandals have been reported in two years of the Jubilee Administration.
WALK THE TALK
Anglican Bishop Eliud Wabukala, who chairs the National Anti-Corruption Campaign steering committee, on Friday asked President Kenyatta to walk the talk on corruption.
“The level of corruption being witnessed in government is only comparable to the 1990s during the Kanu era,” said anti-graft crusader and former Ethics Permanent Secretary John Githongo who was a critical player in exposing the Anglo Leasing scandal during the President Mwai Kibaki administration.
In the interview on Saturday, Mr Odinga also accused the Jubilee Coalition of selective prosecution of Anglo-Leasing suspects, saying some individuals with a strong relationship with the Kanu regime had been left out.
Mr Odinga has questioned what he calls reluctance by the Jubilee Government to prosecute election officials involved in the Chickengate scandal involving bribery by a British printing firm whose managers have since been jailed.
To address corruption, he suggests reforms in the public service, security sector and implementation of Agenda Four issues identified by the Kofi-Annan panel in 2008, mainly creation of jobs for the youth.
The other is strict implementation of the Constitution, particularly Article 10, which demands that only people of integrity be entrusted with public offices.
'A HUGE TAX'
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Friday warned that unless tackled, corruption will slow economic growth.
“The problem with corruption anywhere is that it is damaging to the economy. It is a huge tax to the economy. It is a tax on business, it deters investment.”
“Defeating corruption will send an incredibly important signal to business. It will help business to thrive, it will encourage investment and it will ensure that the fruits are spread more equitably and more fairly.”
On Saturday, Mr Odinga said that members of the private sector had raised concern with him that corruption had increased the cost of doing business in Kenya.
He said that investors have to bribe members of the Executive for award of tenders, the Judiciary in case of court cases arising from tender disputes and committees of Parliament purporting to be investigating issues relating to the contracts.
“The MPs who pretend to be investigating the tenders are only looking for a cut. They give approval after their hands have been greased,” Mr Odinga said.
He claimed that members of key House committees were being bribed by forces in the Executive to stop investigations into the theft of taxpayers’ money.
“The focus should be on the individual in the Executive who is throwing money at members of the Public Accounts Committee in order not to be mentioned adversely in investigations.”
The former Prime Minister was making reference to claims in Parliament that members of the committee chaired by ODM secretary-general Ababu Namwamba were bribed to shield a senior government official.
But Mr Odinga was uncomfortable with suggestions that having been accused of bribery in House committees, Cord MPs — including Mr Namwamba — had no moral authority to raise questions on corruption.
“That is nonsense. A majority of the MPs in the committees are from the ruling coalition,” he said.
However, Mr Odinga could not hide his excitement over the Kajiado by-election, which his party won despite a spirited and highly-oiled campaign by the Jubilee coalition.
But he strongly thinks that Jubilee should not have fielded a candidate in Kajiado having “poached” Mr Joseph Nkaissery of ODM for appointment as a Cabinet Secretary.
He argues that ODM should have been given a free hand to retain their seat.
“It was an act of terrible bad faith but the Kajiado people taught them a lesson, that we in ODM stand for bigger things than public appointments and false promises of development.”
The seat was won by ODM’s Elijah Memusi against Jubilee’s Patrick Tutui.
CREDIT: NMG
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