US envoy offers help in graft war

By DAVE OPIYO dopiyo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Tuesday, August 10 2010 at 21:00
In Summary

-Ranneberger optimistic new leader will end the culture of impunity

The US Government has pledged to scale up its assistance to Kenya’s anti-graft watchdog to enable it fight corruption effectively.

Ambassador Michael Ranneberger revealed on Tuesday that his government had previously held back its support to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (Kacc) as it did not have “the right kind of leadership” and was “not acting in an effective way”.

But with the recent appointment of Dr Patrick Lumumba, the US is optimistic of more effective action to fight corruption and the culture of impunity.

“Now that we have a new and effective leader we are going to look into ways of expanding our support,” said the envoy when he paid Dr Lumumba a courtesy call.

“We shall be helping Kacc with outreach efforts to urge Kenyans to fight corruption at all levels. We shall increase technical assistance to the body, support investigative techniques and capacity building,” said Mr Ranneberger.

“We are encouraged by his appointment and are now committed to working with the government to end corruption – the major problem that has dogged the country since independence,” he said.

Mr Ranneberger last year said the commission, established in 2004, had performed badly when Justice Aaron Ringera was at the helm.

On his part, Dr Lumumba said that the fight against graft will be intensified under the new Constitution.

“We as an organisation are happy that for the first time under Article 79 of the new Constitution, a body that deals with ethics and corruption is constitutionally established,” he said.

“We hope that within one year we shall have pieces of legislation that will not allow us and others to say that we are an organisation without teeth,” he added.

He has assured the country that Kacc will do everything possible to ensure that the scourge of corruption is dealt with firmly.