Despite what the Constitution says, Kenya’s presidency is imperial. We have concentrated untrammelled power in the presidency, making it the most coveted office in the land. This is an African thing – we love the cult of the Big Man, the Bwana Mkubwa, the Mtukufu Rais. Africans do not like their presidents powerless and symbolic. We generally do not like small things – everything we want is generally big and out there, and that includes our political leaders.
We see stepping back from anything as a loss, as cowardly and unbecoming – which is why it is so difficult for Kenyan men to retire from employment. Used as they are to the spending power that their regular salaries provide, they are unable to pivot to a life of lowered incomes, and many do not survive long after retirement. And so, it is with our presidents – we like them super-powerful, taking the power-worship to stratospheric new levels.
But, despite all this power, President Uhuru Kenyatta has severally declared that he is effectively powerless to end the corruption in his own office. Not the wider sleaze in government, nor even the graft that bedevils the entire country, but just the rot in the Office of the President – Uhuru says he cannot do anything about it. He is reduced to making ineffective speeches and issuing plaintive pleas to the corrupt to clean up their act. They have, predictably, ignored him – after all, he is a lame-duck with just a few days left in power. It is the incoming president, whoever it is, that will have an opportunity to clean up Kenya’s corruption.
Our biggest undoing is the weakness of institutions, systems, and processes that block leakages, coupled with the pervasiveness of impunity and limited political will to hold accountable and punish those found guilty of such corruption.
But what of Kenya, the prize that these two political titans are tussling over? Kenya is hollowed out by corruption. The vast amounts of money Uhuru borrowed from China to underpin his impressive infrastructure development have bred a level of corruption that is astonishing even by Kenyan standards. The Chinese stand ready with even more money for Uhuru’s successor, as they bid to enfold Kenya in a Beijing Debt Trap not unlike what they visited on Sri Lanka, whose economy has just collapsed under the weight of unsustainable and unpayable debts owed to China.
Which of the two leading presidential contenders will stand against corruption and help find a way out of the mess of graft that we find ourselves in? Corruption affects everything we do and adds a graft premium to every transaction in the country, every business decision. We pay the price of corruption at the duka, at the petrol pump, in our bus fares, in our school fees, in our rents and in the unaffordability of life in Kenya as a whole.
A huge chunk of the inflation that is rampant in Kenya is due to corruption – commodity prices include a bribery element. We are at the point where corruption is so much of our lifeblood that it is almost impossible for the economy to survive without it.
Our biggest undoing is the weakness of institutions, systems, and processes that block leakages, coupled with the pervasiveness of impunity and limited political will to hold accountable and punish those found guilty of such corruption.
Despite our very enabling constitution, the biggest problem is how to build strong, enduring governance institutions. Building institutions takes time and does not deliver the quick results that typically attract politicians or donors. We are fortunate to now have technology that enables us to build electronic platforms to manage government finances, biometric systems to bring integrity to our personnel and government payment systems, and web-based platforms to provide transparency of government finances. But even these are routinely bypassed or compromised. This is the sort of brazenness the next president must decisively confront.
The next government needs to focus anti-corruption efforts on long-term, high-return institution building activities – particularly the leeway to act with their proper bounds without interference – coupled with the justice infrastructure and political will to hold those who transgress accountable. This process should start by making key government statistics open and transparent, enabling citizens to keep on top of important information and build trust in the government. Only then can the country record wins against corruption. (
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