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On corruption scandals in Kenya
#69 - 0--clubafrika--On corruption scandals in Kenya--2006-02-18 03:29:07
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Current resignations are not enough. We need more and speedy prosecutions!
I love President Kibaki in more ways than one. The man can be irritatingly slow and indecisive at times. But somehow he eventually acts even if it is in piecemeal dozes. Is it his nature to take his time even in the face of a catastrophe facing the nation? Why does President Kibaki behave like he is always the last to comprehend the magnitude of any national disaster?
Recent situations explain the President's indifference to national issues. When the First Lady stormed a media house in the dead of the night in mid last year, he was the last person to react. In fact he never reacted at all, at least to the knowledge of the public.
When the media was abuzz with the news of his second wife, the debate raged for so long and he only reacted when he realized the situation was getting out of control.
At the time he was reacting to the famine situation in the country, so many Kenyans had lost their lives and animals.
Today, land clashes are raging in Molo area in which many families have lost everything yet President Kibaki seems not to be concerned with the problem.
This corruption scandal that is now rocking his government to the bone has been with him since the early 2003. Had Kibaki been a proactive leader, he would not be dealing with Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing together. These issues would have been dispensed with in 2004.Today; he would be tackling not two but one dragon, the Anglo Leasing. Yet his ability to wish away things, his ability to fail to respond rapidly to grave issues of the nation has now put him on the spot- a spot he didn't have to be in, in the first place. - A few weeks ago, I wrote on these pages that if Kibaki sacked Awori, Kiraitu and Saitoti, there would be no tangible demonstrations to impact on his government. Reactions from Imenti and Kajiado North have vindicated me. There have been no demonstrations at all in support of the disgraced leaders. If anything, ordinary Merus celebrated Kiraitu's sacking and urged President Kibaki to get better Meru leaders to replace them. As for Saitoti, his adopted constituents seemed to have sighed with relief that he was finally felled by his own sword, the sword of graft.
As Kenyans witness poetic justice in its true sense, the general mood of the country is that, we haven't crossed the bridge just yet. Yes, Githongo has spilled the beans at a time when Justice Bosire also dropped his bombshell. However, the sacking of Murungaru, Murungi, Mwiraria, Saitoti, a few permanent secretaries and the president's personal assistant would be meaningless if Martha Karua, Moody Awori, Kipruto Kirwa, Mukhisa Kituyi, Aaron Ringera and Francis Muthaura were also not sacked or asked to go home pending their probes.
They too must go home because they have failed this country. Their attempt to defend graft or even ignore it makes their continued stay in office untenable.
Aaron Ringera is on record as stating that he would not prosecute any Cabinet minister on graft charges because such ministers were never accountable to their ministries. He said that the permanent secretaries were the accounting officers and hence liable to prosecution. Now that some of those ministers he defended have gone home, he has no moral authority to remain in office. Never mind that Githongo's London tapes have also quoted him as saying that if graft reached the President, then he would not touch it!
I am saying this for a simple fact. Martha Karua took a hard line and cleared David Mwiraria from any wrong doing on the Anglo Leasing scam.
Mwiraria has since resigned. Moody Awori cannot escape responsibility for misleading the nation on the Anglo Leasing scam when he went to Parliament to claim that it was a clean deal.
Mukhisa Kituyi and Kipruto Kirwa cannot account for their current wealth, just three years after being in office when, according to Fred Gumo and Daniel Arap Moi, they were paupers just the other day. This sudden wealth running in to hundreds of millions cannot account for their ministerial incomes which at best could not be more that Ksh 36 million in three years, assuming that they never spent a single cent from their earnings!
If they have borrowed funds from the banks to build their posh homes in leafy areas of Nairobi, let the banks avail the loans and repayment rates authenticated by Parliament.
The moment of truth has now come when the Kenyan people cannot go soft on any body under suspicion. Beyond sacking all these people, speedy investigations must be carried out to establish their innocence or guilt. If found guilty, let them face the normal justice system that punishes ordinary Kenyans.
Let them face jail terms and confiscation of their property to return to Kenyans what they might have stolen from Kenya.
Another thing, I can see that the surrender of passports, guns and freezing of bank accounts has been directed mainly at the Goldenberg culprits. In my opinion, this is selective justice. There is non reason why Murungaru, Kiraitu, Mwiraria and any other Anglo Leasing suspect should be given an opportunity to siphon their loot from the country or escape to another unfriendly country. It will be too expensive trying to trace them in South America, Central Africa or Eastern Europe, now that they cannot set foot in Britain, the US and possibly the Commonwealth countries.
On another level, as things stand now, patch work will not do for the Kibaki administration. The way I see it, he has only two choices; to dissolve the cabinet for the second time and appoint a new sensible lot, including the ODM members of Parliament or, dissolve Parliament and call for fresh elections. If he calls for fresh elections, he will be seeking a fresh mandate from Kenyans to rule them. Right now, he doesn't have that mandate or even the moral authority to tell Kenyans what to do.
The snag is; will the ODM accept his offer again? Once bitten twice shy.
That is the way I see it.
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