Whom Should Kenyans Blame For The Faltering War On Corruption?

The resignation of Philip Kinisu as head of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission caps off yet another week during which corruption and the faltering war waged against it have dominated newspaper headlines. In the aftermath of the Olympic games, ironically Kenya’s most successful ever judging by the number of medals our athletes gathered, revelations of theft and joyriding have demonstrated that Kenyan accomplishment comes in spite, rather than because, of their government.

Yet listening to Kinisu’s predecessor, the former head of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, Dr PLO Lumumba, it is these very Kenyans who are to blame for the mess we are in. “Kenyans as a society have not demonstrated that they want corruption to be fought,” he claimed on Wednesday evening on the Jeff Koinange show. 

This was perhaps not a surprising sentiment, given how Dr Lumumba was himself hounded out of office for trying to do his job. But as understandable as it may be, it is nonetheless profoundly misguided. He confuses Kenyan society for the state and Kenyans for those who claim to represent them but actually are little more than parasites sucking the lifeblood out of them. It is the equivalent of claiming that the fiasco in Rio was evidence that Kenyan athletes are corrupt.

Sadly, there is a failure within official discussions of corruption to distinguish between perpetrators and victims of corruption; a tendency to fault the latter for their victimisation. In 2005, then Justice Minister, and now Senator, Kiraitu Murungi, outraged many when he compared criticism of the government's fight against corruption to "raping a woman who is already willing", a remark he was to apologize for a few days later. It is unclear why Dr Lumumba, and his fellow guest on the show, publisher and columnist Barrack Muluka, appear to think that it is less outrageous to suggest that Kenyans are willing participants in the plunder of their resources.

As I have previously discussed on this column, studies on the nature of corruption have established that the vast majority of bribes paid by Kenyans are extorted by government officials for access or expedition of services that citizens are already entitled to. Reversing this violation of public trust will not be accomplished by appealing to the victims to change, just as rape culture will not be vanquished by asking women to behave differently. Rather it is the perpetrators and their enablers and protectors within government that must bear the burden of punishment and change. In fact, later in the show, Dr Lumumba attributed the relative success of anti-corruption efforts in Nigeria, Botswana, Mauritius and Rwanda not to changes in societal attitudes towards graft, but to the willingness of their respective heads of government to “lead from the front”.

In Kenya, there is little sign that President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy, William Ruto, are doing likewise. On the contrary, a survey of public perceptions of corruption recently released by the Africa Centre for Open Governance indicates a majority believe their offices to be the most corrupt. The fact is it is not the ordinary mwananchi who lacks the will to fight corruption but rather, the very people within government tasked with carrying out that fight. 

The reasons for this are not hard to fathom. The political class, which benefits greatly from the vice, has the most to lose from any serious attempt to stamp it out. It is they, not ordinary Kenyans, who would be the primary targets of any such enterprise and can thus be relied upon to pull out all the stops to ensure that the EACC remains little more than a paper tiger. Whoever elects to take on the job of fighting graft must expect that he or she will be an enemy of the governing elite and, unlike Kinisu, must not present them with easy avenues of attack. 

However, and more importantly, we must all realize that the war on corruption will not be won by scapegoating its victims but rather by harnessing their collective anger and outrage and directing it against the perpetrators. This means that the onus and pressure must be focused squarely on the person best placed to do this, the instrument of our collective force and he whom the constitution describes as the symbol of our national unity: President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Running On Empty

“Even a dog would have been elected” lamented the late KANU stalwart, J.J. Kamotho, in 1992 following the rout in the former Central and Nairobi provinces of the then ruling party in the first multiparty elections. In both municipal and Parliamentary elections, pretty much anyone who stood on a Ford-Asili ticket won. Such was the revulsion with which KANU was held that it seemingly did not matter whether alternative candidates had credible visions of their own.

In the near-quarter century since, and as control of the capital has veered between the opposition and the ruling party, the fortunes of the city’s long-suffering residents have continued to dwindle. In the four elections that have been held since 1992, politicians have rarely been elected on the basis of their plans. Quite the contrary. Most have been content to run against the perpetually dismal record of the incumbent rather than on what they intend to do for the city.

Now this is not to say that there have not been grandiose promises. Of course there have. The 2013 gubernatorial debates were replete with promises of fixed sewers, new infrastructure, more schools, cleaner streets. However, little was offered in the way of plans.

In his inaugural address, Governor Evans Kidero declared that his first 100 days in office would be dedicated to clearing up the garbage; fixing traffic problems; decongesting the city and the Central Business District; sorting out crime, security and city planning; improving trade with other counties; creating jobs and business opportunities; and improving the county’s revenues. However, he did not say how he would go about any of this and, perhaps predictably, 1250 days later little of this has been accomplished.

I remember asking on Twitter -prior to his inauguration- what Kidero planned to do about the violence and abuse suffered daily by the city’s women and girls and getting quickly shut down by his online fan club. Six months later, our TV screens were showing that he was not exactly averse to engaging in a little violence against women himself.

As we approach the 2017 election, Nairobians are once again inundated with promises, declarations, visions and manifestos from a plethora of candidates hoping to unseat the hapless incumbent. Most can eloquently articulate the problems afflicting the city. In vague and flowery language, they talk of their vision of a better Nairobi. However, like Kidero three years ago, they are a little vague on the details.

Take the bombastic former chief advisor to the Prime Minister, Miguna Miguna, for example. On his second run for the governorship, Miguna has published a lengthy vision and manifesto. In them, he rightly identifies integrity and accountability as the cornerstone of any competent administration. “Integrity is the software of leadership without which a leader is nothing but a primitive dangerous beast with power,” he writes, while declaring his own “unimpeachable background and an unyielding commitment to the fundamental transformation”. Much of what follows is a condemnation of the “looting” of the city under Kidero. So what does he propose to do about it? Aside from ensuring only individuals of proven integrity are part of his administration, he also promises playgrounds, markets, infrastructure and at least 100,000 “well-paying jobs for the youth and engineers per year starting 2018”.

This is all well and good. However, how exactly he plans to deliver this remains a bit of a mystery. He does not say how much it might cost, where he will get the money for it or even whether he has identified any particular projects. When asked about this, he and his online crew are wont to brand their questioners as apologists for Kidero and the cartels robbing the city.

Miguna is not alone in this reluctance, even refusal, to be specific. Esther Passaris, another who has thrown her hat into the ring and described the county administration as “a total mess”, also makes promises of 24hr service, parking, markets etc. Not much detail on how any of this is to be achieved.

Like KANU had by the 90s, Kidero’s tenure has been characterized by incompetence and thievery. He makes for an easy target. However, for the sake of Nairobians, it should not be enough to just be a “dog” running against him.

A Tale Of Two Highways

In July, on a short visit to the UK, I took a 200 kilometre drive on the M40 from London to Birmingham. Travelling through the English countryside, one is treated to lots of greenery but not much else. In fact, for one used to Kenyan roads, this is perhaps the most remarkable thing about travelling on the motorway. For two hours, apart from my fellow motorists and their passengers, there was little sign of life. No towns, no cyclists, no bus stops, no pedestrians strolling beside it or trying to cross it.

Last weekend, I had occasion to use another “superhighway” this time, back in Kenya. The experience was quite different. It took about two and a half hours to cover the 126 kilometres from Nairobi to Karatina, just under half of which is on the famous Thika Superhighway, the signature infrastructure project of the Kibaki administration. Massive tailbacks are a feature at the regular bumps erected to facilitate pedestrian crossings along the busy and populated areas the road rumbles through. In addition, 18 footbridges span it and another 10 are planned. Matatus are constantly stopping to (mostly illegally) pick up or drop passengers. It is a road that is full of life.

It is also a road sadly filled with death. According to the National Transport and Safety Authority, it is Kenya’s most dangerous road for pedestrians. In 2014, the Senate committee on transport and infrastructure found that over 200 pedestrians had died since the road was inaugurated two years prior. Nearly 300 had been injured. That works out to about 5 people killed or injured every week.

Why are so many dying and being maimed? The NTSA says the 80 percent of road crashes are caused by human error, everything from drunk drivers to jaywalking pedestrians. In fact, the 2014 Senate committee report indicated that nearly 800 pedestrians had been arrested for attempting to cross from undesignated areas. The remaining fifth of crashes were attributed to mechanical condition of vehicles, weather and the state of the road itself.

This understanding has informed the measures undertaken to tackle the problem. From increased enforcement to the erection of bumps to slow down traffic on what was touted as an expressway, to building more footpaths and erecting barriers to prevent unauthorized crossings. Yet, few eyebrows were raised 6 months ago when Transport Secretary, James Macharia, announced the government’s intention to remove the existing bumps, which were themselves said to be a safety feature. It was an indicator of where the problem truly lies.

To understand why, take a look at Sweden. In 1997, the country, which has one of the best road safety records in the world, adopted a radical Vision Zero policy, which seeks to not just reduce, but eliminate deaths and injuries on its roads. The main pillar of the policy is that those who design, maintain and enforce the road system and its rules are ultimately responsible for the level of safety within it.

In essence, it is not enough to simply point the finger at errant drivers and stupid pedestrians. Road crashes are also a function of the design and rules of the road. In fact the policy puts the onus not on users but on the designers. The late Donella Meadows described a system as “a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time,” and invited us to consider the implications of the idea that any system, to a large extent, causes its own behavior.

With this understanding, we can begin to see that the difference between Thika Superhighway and the M40 is not that Kenyans are congenitally poor drivers and law breakers and the British are not. In fact, the M40 does have its fair share of pile ups. But the reason you do not find pedestrians dashing across it and buses stopping on it is mostly the such problems have been engineered out. People don’t run across it because it is not located where they would need to. We obviously cannot physically move our Superhighway but we can ask questions about how and where our roads are built and about the systems governing the behavior on them.

To explain its projects and well aware of Kenyans’ deep acquaintance with empty promises of “development”, the government has been wont to use a single word – inajengwa (it is being built). And indeed, for many citizens, the fact that after decades of getting nothing for their taxes, the fact that something, anything, is erected is a cause for celebration. But such joy is, as we have seen, bound to end in grief. Inajengwa is the reason why few questions were raised when scammers were irregularly paid KSh791 million for a road in Kibera. Inajengwa is why we are today spending Ksh400 billion to build a railway line next to an existing one and getting, according to one consultant, “a third-rate railway for the cost of a very expensive one”.

It is time we said inajengwa is not enough.