A culture of corruption, greed and self-enrichment as entrenched as it is within Kenya's ruling elite, can't be changed overnight. What can change quickly are the checks and balances that make it much more difficult to carry out corrupt practices.
Last week's crucial referendum in which a new constitution was emphatically approved by the Kenyan people, incorporates many (but not all) of the checks and balances that are required to regulate the country's politics and give voice to all its citizens. This is a huge leap in Kenya's tortuous history but
having a constitution doesn't mean anything if the principles are not followed.
Kenya is a country with endemic corruption. Transparency International ranked Kenya 146 out of 180 in their 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index. That's 16 places lower than Nigeria and 62 places lower than India.
To give you some context, water costs three times more in Kibera, Kenya's biggest slum (and also one of the world's largest) than in Manhattan or London. Meanwhile, Kenya's members of parliament are amongst the world's best paid politicians.
Last month, Kenya's MPs voted to raise their own salary by 18 percent to 1.09 million shillings ($13,370) a month, claiming that because their salaries were going to be taxed for the first time, they needed the pay increase in order to make up the shortfall. Predictably, this provoked howls of outrage. When President Mwai Kibaki said he would not sign the increase into law, the MPs retaliated by saying that they would not pass Kenya's Appropriation Bill, effectively stymieing all government
spending.
Kibaki first came to power in 2002 on an anti-corruption platform. Daniel arap Moi, the man that Kibaki succeeded, had been in power for 24 years and in that time, his administration had weathered a steady stream of high profile corruption scandals that culminated in the IMF suspending aid to Kenya due to its concerns over corruption. In a country where 50 percent of the population live on less than $1 a day, Moi had systematically looted the country of billions of dollars.
Although Kibaki has spoken frequently about eradicating corruption in Kenya, there are some that believe levels of corruption have in fact increased since Moi left power. In 2004, a year and a half into Kibaki's first term as president, the British high commissioner to Kenya, Sir Edward Clay, famously accused corrupt officials within the Kenyan government of behaving "like gluttons" and "vomiting on the shoes" of donors. A year later, the U.S. and German governments suspended aid to Kenya's anti-corruption agencies citing a lack of political support from the Kenyan government in the fight against corruption.
The biggest crisis came at the end of 2007 over allegations of vote-rigging in a presidential election that ignited unprecedented violence throughout the country, killing 1,300 people.
The new legal framework addresses the corruption, political patronage, land-grabbing and tribalism which have plagued Kenya since it won independence from Britain in 1963.
It's a truism that laws are only as effective as their enforcement. Kenyans can only hope that enforcement of these laws soon to be enshrined in the country's constitution will be diligently performed. With official referendum results showing that 67 percent of Kenyans voted in favour of the constitution, it's manifest that the people have spoken. Only time will tell as to whether the government was listening.
The constitution will enshrine the following:
- An independent commission made up of police, teachers, trade unions, parliamentarians and the judiciary that will decide the salaries of all state officers.
- Parliament shall enact legislation to establish an independent ethics and anti-corruption commission.
- Freedom and independence of electronic, print and all other types of media is guaranteed.
- Every citizen has the right to access information held by the State.
- A person is disqualified from being an elected member of parliament if "found, in accordance with any law, to have misused or abused a state office or public office…"
- No law may exclude or authorise the exclusion of a state officer from payment of tax by reason of the office held by that state officer or the nature of the work of the state officer.
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