Former President Uhuru Kenyatta once threw his hands in the air dejectedly, wondering what the Auditor General Edward Ouko wanted him to do about corruption in Kenya.
He would later reveal that the Kenyan economy was losing at least $14.3 million every day to corruption. In retrospect, Uhuru largely did nothing about high level corruption, which would define his reign to the very end.
Upon taking over in August 2022, Uhuru’s former deputy William Ruto declared, with much bravado, his commitment to slaying the corruption dragon.
Safe for his diehard supporters, many took the promise with a pinch of salt, especially considering the calibre of people Ruto was appointing to high profile offices. A majority of them had probity queries around them.
Mithika Linturi, now Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture, for instance, told the parliamentary vetting committee that he was facing at least 35 legal suits, including on rape and forgery. The House, nevertheless, cleared him for the appointment.
If a recent report by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Authority Commission (EACC) is anything to go by, time has vindicated the pessimists. According to the 2023 National Ethics and Corruption Survey, the Kenya government fits the description of a giant graft enterprise, in which every service has a price.
That culture, as affirmed years earlier in a leaked cable by former US ambassador Michael Ranneberger, has existed since independence, with the top national leadership being part of it.
The March 2024 EACC report reveals that the average size of bribe paid in Kenya nearly doubled to $83 from $49 in the first year under President Ruto, with the usual suspect institutions maintaining their top positions on the list of ignominy.
At the apex, is the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA), where a service seeker pays an average $584. Following NTSA on the list of shame is the Judiciary where a service sets one back $354 in bribe payment, followed by the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) at $285 average bribe.
Created by a 2012 Act of Parliament, NTSA is mandated to continuously improve road safety for all users through planning, managing and regulating the road transport system.
That it is a spectacular failure is affirmed by the ever increasing number of horrific accidents on the Kenyan roads, where the NTSA officers, like their traffic police counterparts, seem to be more adept at extorting bribes than anything else.
And corruption is not a preserve of the central government. It is equally deeply entrenched in the counties, the second tier government introduced by the 2010 Constitution, and which the populace celebrated for bringing services closer to the people.
All the 47 counties have been fingered for all manner of corrupt dealings, invariably overseen by the bosses, the governors. To the bribe seeker in Kenya, no case is too desperate to milk.
According to the EACC report, a job seeker, on average, pays as much as $1,166, for an opportunity that is never guaranteed. Not even the foreigners are spared the scourge as Katherine Tai, the US Trade Representative. Tai, writing in the 2024 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers,
Tai said: “Corruption remains a substantial barrier to doing business in Kenya. US firms continue to report challenges competing against foreign companies that are not averse to ignoring legal standards or offer bribes and other forms of corruption. While judicial reforms are moving forward, bribes, extortion and political considerations influence cases.”
She warned that the level of corruption would cost Kenya future investment from businesses and countries that shunned or punished corrupt activities.
Transparency International affirms Kenya’s corruption-ridden status. In the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, Kenya scored 31 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), and ranked 126th among the 180 countries in the Index. In the East Africa Community region, where Kenya is the largest economy, it ranks lower than Rwanda (49) and Tanzania (87), but higher than Uganda (141).
Whereas it takes two to tango, the EACC report shows that a majority of Kenyans paid the bribe as the only way to access the government services they need. While an average Kenyan may single out corruption as a serious problem that calls for urgent decisive action, to the successive governments, all indications are that that has never been the case.
