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.