Kenya’s Civil Servants: From Ordinary to Overnight Millionaires in Citadel of Corruption
In 1974, when Zacharia Shimechero was sentenced to five years in prison for corruption, he was the only prominent figure to be imprisoned during President Jomo Kenyatta’s 15-year tenure.
Shimechero had a bad fortune. While Kenyan civil servants and politicians have become overnight billionaires and multimillionaires as a result of corruption rather than business, possessing massive property and large shares in blue-chip companies, only a handful have ended up in prison.
In 1974, when Shimechero was sentenced to five years in prison for corruption, he became the first senior government official to be imprisoned during the presidency of Jomo Kenyatta.
As the former Deputy Secretary in charge of Government Central Medical Stores, which is now the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency, Shimechero was accused of receiving KSh144,000 in bribes from the director of Poly Chemists, Arvind Patel, who was also imprisoned, to supply goods without passing through the tender board.
The prosecutor, Sharad Rao, told the court that Shimechero used the funds “to buy various properties” and that there was information that he was also given a Mercedes-Benz.
In the past eight months, major graft cases have either collapsed or been abandoned by the Director of Public Prosecutions, ostensibly to spite the former Director of Criminal Investigations, George Kinoti, lending credence to the argument that Kenya’s elite was unwilling to rein in rampant corruption.
In 1964, a maize scandal involving Cabinet Minister Paul Ngei was documented as the first instance of political impunity. The 1964 maize scandal was comparable to the contemporary cooking oil racket under Moses Kuria’s Trade ministry, by modern standards.
Minister of Cooperatives and Marketing at the time, Ngei also served as chairman of the Maize Marketing Board. Under Ngei’s supervision, maize disappeared, resulting in a crisis. At the time, Kenya was a net exporter of maize, primarily to Japan.
Ngei was never punished even though Kenyatta appointed a Commission of Inquiry led by Justice Chanan Singh to investigate corruption at Ngei’s ministry and the Maize Marketing Board.
Instead, the Commission redefined corruption: “There is no evidence before us demonstrating corruption in its legal sense. In the majority of cases, “unfairness” is an apt descriptor for what occurred. People took unfair advantage of their commercial or political positions. In some instances, public office was abused, according to the report.
Martin Shikuku, a member of parliament from Butere, urged the government to establish a judicial commission to investigate the rise in corruption cases in 1969, six years after independence.
He asked, “Is it a known fact that the majority of us (leaders) had very little fortune before becoming leaders, and most importantly before Kenya attained independence? What do we see after this brief period since Kenya’s independence?” Shikuku called for the formation of a judicial commission, stating, “It would be fair for those in high positions to explain how they acquired their wealth in such a short period.”
Attorney-General Charles Njonjo, one of the new oligarchs, told Parliament, however, that an investigation was unnecessary. “I am satisfied that these issues are being handled satisfactorily,” he stated, condemning the formation of such a commission as “a waste of time and public funds.”
In 1971, Shikuku was at it again when he asked Parliament to establish a special committee to investigate corruption, tribalism, and nepotism. While this was enacted, Jomo Kenyatta summoned the Kanu parliamentary group over the issue, preventing it from moving forward. Shikuku later claimed that the selection of committee members was influenced by tribalism and favoritism.
Commission of Inquiry Ndegwa
In that same year, the Ndegwa Commission of Inquiry, which was established to examine and investigate matters affecting the structure and remuneration of the public service, issued a report recommending that civil servants be permitted to conduct business with the government within the same institutions in which they worked, so long as there was no conflict of interest. It never worked in the real world.
In what has become a tradition, government offices were transformed into spaces for commercial transactions overnight. The significance of the 1971 Ndegwa Report was that it eradicated what was previously known as corruption and civil servants became wealthy private sector employees.
A few years later, in 1974, the small village of Chepkube in Bungoma was transformed by local politicians, security officers, and government officials into a center for coffee smuggling.
Millions of dollars worth of stolen and smuggled Ugandan coffee was brought into Kenya through this corridor, predominantly on bicycles.
The traders would convey it from “border to border,” which is where the term “boda-boda” comes from. In June of that year, veteran politician Kung’u Karumba, a member of the Kapenguria Six, vanished without a trace in Uganda while on a ‘business’ excursion.
As the wealthy became more prosperous, the impoverished began to descend into the abyss. Dr. Julius Kiano, one of Kenyatta’s ministers, was dubbed “Mr. Ten Percent” The eloquent representative JM Kariuki predicted that Kenya would become a nation of “10 millionaires and 10 million beggars.”
It was a rhetorical projection, as Kariuki was one of the “10 millionaires” due to his ownership stakes in the gambling and mineral industries.
In May 1975, bolstered by outrage over the murder of JM Kariuki, Shikuku successfully moved a motion to “establish a select committee to investigate corruption in Kenya.”
It was the first challenge to the patronage system, which encouraged public positions to be used for private benefit. The first time, all members were required to publicly declare their fortunes, which they did.
President Daniel Arap Moi banned smuggling (Magendo) after the death of Jomo Kenyatta, and it was anticipated that corruption would cease. During his 23-year reign, Moi’s Kanu administration transformed the government into a den of corruption while projecting an image of a religious man.
Moi, like Kenyatta, used his position to amass wealth and permitted his inner circle to do the same. Under Moi’s supervision, mega-corruption was reported in nearly all sectors, including energy, infrastructure construction, and the sale of state-owned enterprises (parastatals). Although this was noted in the auditor general’s annual reports, no action was taken.
Moi used land allocation as a key loyalty-buying weapon, and government parastatals were transformed into dens of corruption. The political establishment looted cash-rich institutions including the National Social Security Fund.
But nothing surpassed the Goldenberg scandal, in which businessman Kamlesh Pattni looted the Treasury to the tune of $600 million in losses to taxpayers.
Moi reluctantly established the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority at the insistence of donors, but his choice of Harun Mwau to head the fight was unexpected.
To demonstrate his strength, Mwau apprehended several Treasury officials in 1998, provoking a conflict with Finance Minister Simeon Nyachae. Moi was compelled to fire Mwau, who was deemed incompetent.
Mwau was succeeded by Solicitor-General Aaron Ringera, but his tenure was cut short in December 2000 when the High Court declared the organization unconstitutional. Moi resigned before his administration could prosecute a major corruption case.
The expectation was that Mwai Kibaki, who was elected on an anti-corruption platform, would. However, Kibaki abandoned the efforts of previous opposition parties to prosecute President Moi for malfeasance.
Consequently, those who had amassed an illicit fortune during the Kanu regime escaped unscathed. Kibaki nonetheless established a Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Goldenberg Scandal, which alleviated the pressure on him to prosecute Moi.
Moi emerged unblemished from the judicial investigations, and despite the Commission’s recommendation that Pattni and other masterminds be prosecuted, the cases failed in court.
Pattni was eventually released.
Consequently, the only ‘big’ scandal that the Kibaki government was able to successfully prosecute involved the former Director of the National Aids Control Council, Dr. Margaret Gachara, who was jailed for taking an exaggerated salary and allowances, and a former National Bank of Kenya official, Wellington Oluga, who was jailed alongside billionaire Ketan Somaia over a KSh115 million London-look taxi scandal. The two were subsequently released by the Supreme Court.
Anglo Leasing scandal in which billions of shillings were paid to fictitious offshore corporations tainted Kibaki’s presidency. To date, however, there has been no success in prosecuting the cases. The High Court released businessman Deepak Kamani from the KSh3.6 billion scandal two weeks ago.
Others released were high-level government officials. Today, only one person, former Home Affairs Permanent Secretary Sylvestor Mwaliko, has been found culpable and sentenced to a Sh3 million fine or three years in prison.
While Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration had filed more high-profile corruption cases than all of his predecessors combined, President William Ruto’s administration has withdrawn all of them.
Ruto accused President Kenyatta of using corruption cases to intimidate Ruto’s supporters during last year’s election campaigns. The unfortunate few who were caught are not the typical symbols of malfeasance.
Along with former Local Government Permanent Secretary Sammy Kirui, former Nairobi City Council legal secretary Mary Ng’ethe, and chairman of the City Council’s tender committee Alexander Musee, former Nairobi Town Clerk John Gakuo was sentenced to three years in prison in May 2018 for a Sh283 million cemetery scandal.
After five months, Gakuo perished. Then there was the case of MP John Waluke and his co-accused, Grace Wakhungu, who were found guilty of fraud in a KSh313 million maize scandal and sentenced to over Sh700 million in fines or seven years in prison.
They have filed an appeal, and Waluke remains an elected MR. In the last 60 years, only a handful of individuals have been imprisoned for mega-corruption, indicating that only the unlucky few have been caught. The depravity persists.
Kenya’s Civil Servants: From Ordinary to Overnight Millionaires in Citadel of Corruption
