Do you see the road?

State corruption has rampantly been played in the civil service with great impunity. The cost has been socio-economic inequality on the people of Kenya.

By Dauti Kahura

The late Nairobi mayor and MP, Andrew Ngumba had a curious way of explaining away institutionalised corruption, every time he was accused of engaging in it. “In the days of yore, before the village elders arbitrated any thorny issue, they would be offered traditional liquor before the deliberations and a goat thereafter”.

Imbued with the art of rhetoric, just like any archetypal politician Ngumba would pose thus, “was this a form of just saying ‘thank you for your time’ to the elders or was it just another name for bribery?”

Being a clever politician, and with the knowledge of hindsight, we can imagine what Ngumba’s answer was. But more importantly, was perhaps the way he retold the little socio-cultural anecdote with an obvious slant to exonerate himself and others in positions of power in engaging in bribery and state corruption.

The question is: when is a gift a bribe and when is a bribe a gift? Take for example the village chief, who until recently had wholesome powers of ‘life and death’ over his subjects. Picture a situation where two quarrelling parties have a land boundary dispute and the chief must decide on the case. The day before the arbitration, one of the warring parties – perhaps the one on the wrong makes an advance visit to the chief and entreats him with a “gift”- as has happened since time immemorial, they would rationalise. One can, without too much effort conjecture the possible outcome of the dispute.

This scenario has replayed itself many times over the years in the country and lest you think it is imaginary just revisit the statutory powers of the chief before the Inter Parties Political Group (IPPG) political reforms of 1997.

Eroding social and natural just

In the course of time, chiefs were not only very powerful, they became the village tycoons.

Should we wonder why chiefs––as public servants––happen to own the biggest pieces of land in their area of jurisdiction? Thus, at the very grassroots level, the deliberate misrepresentation of a socio-cultural norm of appreciation of work done has been upturned to mean open bribery and the establishing of institutionalised corruption.

What this has done at the village level is to impoverish the people by forcing them to give away their little economic surpluses. But more fundamentally, the system of offering gifts to the chiefs has eroded the cultural base of social and natural justice. For as long as a peasant does not have a chicken or a goat for the chief so that the “local authority on the justice system” can rule in his/her favour then, the peasant not only suffers inequalities of justice immeasurably, but also the little he has could be taken away, making him poorer.

The cost of state corruption and socio-economic inequality on the people of Kenya has rampantly been played in the civil service with great impunity. Most evidently in the state justice system, practised through our High Courts and magistracy.

The government’s way

Just after gaining independence in 1963 from the British, the country naturally inherited their justice system line, hook and sinker. Hence the Chief Justice (CJ) and his subsequent followers believed that their work was to safeguard and shield the nation. The question was: to shield it from whom? Derek Schofield, the Chief Justice of Gibraltar and a former High Court Judge in Nairobi has this to say of the “independence” CJs: “(They) perceived their role as that of supporting the government and if this involved ensuring an occasional case went a particular way, that was the price to pay for stability”. Inevitably, states Schofield, the Kenyan justice system created an environment where corruption became rife and the government could always have its way in the courts.

Schofield has a personal anecdote to narrate. He who first came to Kenya as a magistrate in 1974 says by 1986, “the Judiciary had reached a situation where the CJ of the day could openly ask me to make a decision in favour of the head of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), because the head of CID had the President’s protection”. The case that Schofield was being asked to act in favour of involved an application of a habeas corpus in which the Police had to admit they had shot dead a person while in police custody. The Police had buried the deceased without notifying his family. The dead man’s wife sued the head of CID because his men could not produce her husband –– apparently they could not locate his grave. “On failing to give the Chief Justice the assurance he sought, the file was taken away from me”, reminisces Schofield. “Of course I had no alternative but to resign from the bench and leave Kenya”.

While at the personal level, Schofield lost his job and had to leave the country, the greater loss was to the widow who could not get justice for her murdered husband.

Yet more critically was the continued erosion of the justice system in the country, which mainly affected the ordinary person. The flawed judicial system made many Kenyans suffer socio-economic inequalities and injustices.

From petty to institutionalised corruption

But how else do Kenyans suffer inequalities through state corruption? Take the excellent example of the now regulated Matatu transport industry. The industry used to be chaotic and anarchic.

When the first Narc Transport Minister John Michuki streamlined the operations by sanitising the industry, the public applauded. Today, the same public is not in a celebratory mood: The irony is that with a regulated Matatu industry, bribery among the Police has even risen. What happened?

What began as petty corruption over time became ingrained and institutionalised corruption. To get rid of it, the State has to destroy all the patronage networks existing in the Police Force, especially in the Traffic Department. The patronage networks created, mainly by the civil service and the political class, has ensured that corruption is profitable and has high returns. Hence, the government’s rhetoric on its zero tolerance on corruption is met with public’s cynicism and scepticism.

Just after Narc was elected to power in 2003, the country witnessed citizens’ jury at work: it exposed and sometimes went as far as invoking citizens’ arrest on arrant police officers that engaged in bribery. What happened to the “citizens’ public court?”

It was just a matter of time before the citizens themselves also gave in to offering bribes to the same police officers. Why? Because they belatedly realised that to fight institutionalised corruption in Kenya, there must be goodwill from the government and the fight must start from the top.

An anecdote

As a tongue in cheek, some political economists have been arguing that corruption in Kenya should be made the fifth factor of production. An interesting stereotypical anecdote is always rehashed when explaining the extent to which institutionalised corruption has deepened the chasm of socio-economic strata among Kenyans.

A Kenyan minister visits his counterpart in an Asian country and marvels at his great wealth at his relatively youthful age. Awed by the host minister, the Kenyan minister asks his counterpart almost conspiratorially: “How did you do it?” “Ah”, retorts an indulged host minister certainly happy that the Kenyan minister could not hold his dazzled feelings. “You see that road”, he points to a well-done smooth highway from the hotel lobby. I ensured that 10 per cent went to my pocket.”

A few years later it was the Kenyan minister’s time to dazzle his friend. “What happened my friend you’re bathing in enormous filthy wealth” queries the minister from Asia. “You taught me a great lesson when I paid a visit to your country”, says the Kenyan minister. “You see that road?” pointing outside. The visiting minister looking outside did not see any road. “I ensured that I pocketed 100% allocated for the road. So the road is on paper. That is how I did it”.

It is of course a crude way to explain how our leaders have massively enriched themselves, through siphoning public offers. Yet, sadly, that is the cold fact that in the wake of the people’s daily sinking into abject poverty, the politicians have continued to wallow in self-aggrandisement and engage in “lootocracy”.

Dauti Kahura is journalist at The Standard

Email: dkahura@hotmail.com