Kenya
The web of corruption in Kenya
by Andrés Alsina
Rome.- Edward Oyugi does not talk
politics, but of how to control politicians. For many years
he and his organization, Sodnet, in addition to many other
forces in Kenya, has tried to fight corruption, uncover responsibility
for major frauds, and finally raise an accusing finger which
would draw a clear line between right and wrong, so that doing
good would be possible and desirable, rather than an almost
shameful act done by those who had failed to do wrong, so
widespread is the corruption.
Yet all these good intentions were
hampered by the most basic stumbling block, the lack of information
- what political science calls lack of transparency ended
up being the best support for corruption. The members of Sodnet
sighed, impotent.
So they sat down and thought about
the essence of the problem, because, as logic teaches, if
the problem has no solution, the problem is badly formulated.
A stop had to be put to public money ending up in private
pockets without the citizens knowing how, “and at the
root of this is the fact that corruption deals with badly
allocated resources. So we asked ourselves if, instead of
finding out how much money had been misappropriated, how much
money had never reached its destination and what methods were
used to misappropriate it, we should not examine the process
itself of allocation of state funds. This process, after all,
the preparation of the budget, is important; it is the source
of government resources and the first point of distribution;
it is also the first point of control over its use.”
The idea of civil society undertaking
the monitoring of the budget in order to trace the root of
corruption did not, however, come out of the blue. The budgetary
process through which it emerges is precisely aimed at smothering
it and making it fail, despite repression.
This process began to take shape
in the previous decade, with Daniel Arap Moi exercising effective
power as Vice President to Jomo Kenyatta. In August 1982,
the social cauldron had boiled over after a military plot
led to major demonstrations, which in turn led to the widespread
looting of shops and public buildings in Nairobi. The repression
dissolved the airforce and spread to the university, with
massive arrests of students and teachers, closing it down
indefinitely. Furthermore, the failed coup d’état
left wounds of suspicion which, in the weak political framework,
never healed, and a predictable distance between ethnic groups.
In 1988, Daniel Arap Moi took office
as President. His administration did not live up to expectations
and did not lessen tribal conflicts; it only opened the doors
to transnational capital and to the severe adjustment policies
of the IMF and the World Bank, thus deepening structural imbalances.
A technocratic line that would not tolerate the radical changes
demanded in the country took hold. Social unrest made the
production of basic foodstuffs fall abruptly and this opportunity
was used by transnational companies to promote, through credit,
the plantation of flowers, sugar cane, coffee and tea exclusively
for export. Wheat and corn for food are now imported from
the United States and South Africa.
In August of that year, Moi completed
the process of institutionalizing his repressive regime, placing
the judicial power under his direction and increasing the
length of preventative detention from one to 14 days. Cases
of corruption and violation of human rights were the meat
and drink of the system.
The last decade started with the
assassination, in February 1990, of Robert Ouko, the minister
of foreign affairs, who had strongly criticized corruption
within the cabinet itself. In order to keep the situation
under control, the government continued to imprison members
of the opposition, but did not manage to prevent the emergence
of a democratic opposition movement. In April 1992, this movement,
under the acronym of FORD, gathered together some 100,000
people in the first demonstration by the opposition authorized
in the last 22 years.
In January 1993, Moi started his
fourth consecutive term as President, despite strong accusations
of fraud and corruption, and the following month he presented
a plan of privatizations and of liberalization of foreign
trade that the IMF considered insufficient. It was only in
1995 that international organizations said they were satisfied
with the plan, which, in addition to a more rigororous tax
regime, contained formal measures against corruption. In February
1997, social tension started to grow once more and students
were killed during the repression. In November 1997, Moi won
the elections once again. This is the situation in which Edward
Oyugi lives and manages to achieve results. “Our concern
is to know what the resources are and how they are disposed
of, in order that our demands can be part of the budgetary
process itself.”
It is true that they have not invented
the wheel. To monitor the budget as an initial and fundamental
way of monitoring the allocation of resources to the various
projects which in turn may be followed up “is a process
that we have seen in India and South Africa. We follow their
example and to a lesser extent that of the United States,
where this started many years ago. I do not know why it started
in the United States, but in India and South Africa it was
linked to the fact that resources were not used properly.”
Edward Oyugi chooses his words
carefully. To monitor the vast amount of money in the budget,
300,000 million Kenyan shillings (at 80 shillings a dollar,
equivalent to 3,750 million dollars in a country with 28 million
inhabitants) implies specialist functions, having available
people with the necessary technical knowledge and setting
clear work priorities. For five years he has been doing this,
an exercise of patience in which information plays hide and
seek. His initial academic training is not ideal for the task,
“but the choice was a logical one.” He taught
psychology at the university, he was arrested, and on being
freed he discovered that he was no longer allowed to give
classes. “So I decided to do this,” he says, as
if it were his destiny. Perhaps it is. Until a short while
ago, he says, he missed the classroom, “but now I don’t,
I’ve lost interest. This is more practical and it captivates
you much more.” Now he is a prisoner of his own interest.
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