Assistant minister wants corrupt officials 'severely punished'

By LUCAS BARASA
Posted Saturday, August 21 2010 at 14:42

An assistant minister wants suspected corrupt government officials denied bail to help stem the vice.

Speaking from Singapore where he accompanied Kenyan athletes, Youth and Sports assistant minister Kabando wa Kabando said incompetence by officials should also be “severely punished.”

Following the passage of the new Constitution, he said, the Government should be courageous and weed out officials implicated in graft.

“We need radical surgery. We can and must bring joy and success as we enter Katiba season. Implementation of our Katiba, especially Chapter 6 on Integrity should make Kenya rise new heights,” the Mukurweini MP said.

He was confident the current unity between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga would accelerate implementation of new constitution and end politics of expediency.

He gave an example of Singapore whose President Lee Kuan Yew, he said, was President Kibaki’s college-mate at London School of Economics as among those that has ensured ethics in leadership adding that Kenya should emulate it.

The unity between PM Hon Raila Odinga and President Kibaki will accelerate motions into prosperity politics of expediency must end.

At the same time, a civil society group has called on the two principals to adhere to Chapter Six and Chapter 13 of new constitution to help end a long-standing culture of impunity, massive human rights violations, abuse of office and endemic corruption.

The clauses say selections to public office should be on basis “of personal integrity, competence and suitability.”

They also call for “objectivity and impartiality in decision making, and in ensuring that decisions are not influenced by nepotism, favouritism, other improper motives or corrupt practices”.

“Failure to respect this sovereign will amounts to political sabotage of the new constitution. It is the sovereign will of the people of Kenya which they are expected to respect not political expediency,” International Centre for Policy and conflict director Wainaina Ndung’u said.

In a statement he said unless the President and Prime Minister wholeheartedly embrace the inviolability of human rights, justice and accountability, the struggle for security and development will not succeed in Kenya.

Impunity, he added, remains a major impediment to development.

Mr Wainaina also asked the African Union to pressurize the Kenyan government to ensure accountability and take international human rights obligations seriously.

“The promulgation of new Constitution offers a fresh impetus and opportunity to the fight against impunity and the purge against corruption in Kenya,” he said.

The implementation of the new constitution, he added, will become a reality only when impunity is adequately addressed