KAIKAI'S KICKER: Let us calculate the true cost of corruption!

On my Kicker tonight, it is time to stop everything in Kenya and just take a moment to calculate the true cost of corruption! We keep talking about debt but I think we are barking up the wrong tree.

A few weeks ago, President William Ruto appointed a task force to carry out a comprehensive forensic audit of the country’s public debt and that team was supposed to present its report in three months. Fair enough, debt is a huge issue but me thinks it is corruption that trumps it all! Haven’t we for example heard about such borrowed monies disappearing into thin air?

Just to jog your mind, a Cabinet Secretary for Treasury could not explain why monies borrowed through the Eurobond could not be accounted for, when pressed to account, the then Cabinet Secretary said something like the money went into budgetary support. Yes, it was that general and that causal; nothing specific! Yet the Eurobond figures involved was about 2 billion U.S dollars, which in today’s exchange would amount to over Ksh.250 billion! So, between debt and corruption, it is time Kenyans correctly pointed where it is hurting most.

Earlier today, there was a first ever conviction of a sitting or former governor for corruption; and this may come as welcome news for all Kenyans who crave for good governance and wish for a successful war on official corruption. Without a doubt, the case against former Samburu Governor Moses Lenolkulal showcased the manuscript of grassroot corruption that is attending to the conduct of business in the counties. The former governor of the poverty and conflict stricken arid county brazenly transacted business with his own county; supplying his own government with fuel through his own company. Lenolkulal was the first governor of Samburu having been elected in 2013 as the new constitutional order took effect.

As Lenolokulal’s case proves, gluttony has been top of the agenda for some of those elected to run counties under the devolution provisions of the Constitution. Cases of man and family run from Samburu County to Migori County where former Governor Okoth Obado and his children have been put to their defence over corruption. Then there was a Ksh.35 million case against Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki and his wife; and a Ksh.56 million case against former Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya; both cases abandoned mysteriously by the office of the DPP.

The counties aside, national level corruption is a time-honored mega championship complete with heroes of dropped cases and beneficiaries of unaccounted wealth. Arror Kimwarer, a water and energy project that turned fictitious cost the taxpayer some Ksh.21 billion– and to date no money has been recovered and no one has been held to account for the loss. There was the NYS cases believed to have among other things launched some successful political careers! Track further back to Triton, Anglo-leasing and even Goldenberg… the list is endless!

Tonight, I persuade that that is the audit we need. As we audit the public debt let us, audit cases of corruption and see just how much we actually lose to graft. Former resident Uhuru Kenyatta once put the figure at Ksh.2 billion a day! What if he was actually right?