By ALPHONCE SHIUNDU ashiundu@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Sunday, November 20 2011 at 22:30
Posted Sunday, November 20 2011 at 22:30
Ministers, their assistants, MPs and councillors are among the most corrupt people in the eyes of the public, says the anti-corruption commission.
In its 2010-2011 report submitted to Parliament, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission shows that one in every three Kenyans views these groups of politicians as the most corrupt.
Heads of parastatals and other government departments are also in this league.
The commission came to this conclusion within the year that it “disrupted a possible loss of Sh1.51 billion” of taxpayers’ money.
The agency says it has concluded investigations into cases involving Sh1.6 billion.
It further says it is still investigating more cases involving Sh6.8 billion in public funds. The cases in court have to do with a total of Sh12.5 billion of taxpayers’ money.
The report comes at a time Cabinet ministers have been criticised over allegations of corrupt practices in their dockets and the usual calls to “take political responsibility and step down”.
Even last week, as the annual report was tabled, Cabinet ministers James Orengo (Lands), Amos Kimunya (Transport) and Soita Shitanda (Housing) alleged that some ministers and MPs were behind the scandalous sale of government land to unsuspecting citizens.
Some MPs are said to be landlords in city slums. Others have allegedly constructed buildings on irregularly acquired public land.
All those accused of corruption have cited “political witch-hunt” as the motive, even when faced with glaring evidence.
The unlucky technocrats under them have had to carry the cross for the management inefficiencies of their bosses.
But the technocrats and other lower cadre officers are not off the hook given that they are responsible for two-thirds of the corruption reports filed with the commission.
Senior officers account for the remaining one-third, despite the widely-held perception that they are the most corrupt.
Slightly more than half (53 per cent) of all the respondents in the commission’s survey “do not know where to report corruption”. Only 46 per cent know where to file their complaints.
The Ministry of Provincial Administration and Internal Security features top of the list as the most corrupt, with seven out of every 10 Kenyans who participated in the survey terming it as the most corrupt.
The Kenya Police, which has consistently taken the number one slot in the most corrupt index, falls under this ministry, and this could explain why the ministry tops the corruption table.
The Ministry of Medical Services comes second in the list of failures in the integrity test.
The ministries of Lands, Local Government and that of Immigration, in that order, also join the list of the most corrupt government departments as per the commission’s survey conducted last year and published in this latest report.
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