Kenya’s corruption networks are in unprecedented flux under the coalition government.
It appears the dragon of corruption is so engorged by the feeding frenzy of the past couple of years that it has started to throw up.
So many deals by so many politically opposed players have finally given the beast indigestion.
Last week, public attention was riveted by the scandal involving the purchase of land for a cemetery in a place called Movoko in Athi River outside Nairobi.
Essentially, the government paid 10 times the market price of the land, with the excess fat shared out among a range of individuals in prominent positions.
As Deputy Prime Minister cum Minister of Local Government Musalia Mudavadi — whose Permanent Secretary Sammy Kirui was among a range of individuals suspended — strenuously denied involvement, the politically polarised atmosphere gave credence to suspicions that the fight against graft is being used to settle political scores and fight political battles.
It was perhaps not coincidental that President Kibaki’s newfound resolve to take action against corruption followed a visit by the head of the IMF to Kenya accompanied by the international music celebrity Bob Geldof.
The list of individuals sent packing compares in range only to those sent home during the Valentine’s Day massacre around the Free Primary Education and maize scandals as the Offices of the Prime Minister and the President competed for the moral high ground in the fight against corruption.
When thieves fall out, wise men profit.
The politicisation of the fight against corruption that victims of the latest purges are complaining about, could finally lead to the dismantling of the corruption networks that have been “fighting back” for a decade. It is worth remembering that in the 1990s, across Latin America, corruption scandals truncated a series of administrations.
In the big picture of corruption in Kenya, two important things have happened over the past three months:
First, with the regard to the maize and graves scandals and to an extent the FPE one too (which is yet to roll out in all its glory) the time line of grand corruption has changed.
While the scams were grimly titillating in their primitivity, the key thing was the speed of things — from the execution of the deals, to their exposure and thence to punitive action, no matter how cynical or externally derived. The time it takes for all these things to happen has shortened dramatically.
The graves saga would seem to have kicked off properly in 2007 and has reached where it has today in a breathtaking three years.
This is unprecedented in Kenyan history where the high and mighty are concerned. And it will have implications.
Generally speaking, grand economic crimes have a life expectancy of between 20 and 25 years.
If you can steal from the public and steal in huge amounts and avoid real accountability for this period you are home free.
The key is for the amounts to be large, so large you become like one of those Western banks that are “too big to fail.”
Your lawyers make a pile of money, your kids finish courses at Princeton, your wife can get a facelift and tummy tuck and you will have gone through a respectable series of high end cars.
In other words, you will have lived a life; your sons and daughters can even go into the anti-corruption business.
Is this changing? If so, these are worthwhile developments even though driven by the incompetence and cynical spirit that infects the current government.
Second, the crisis is shaking up the primary component of systemic grand corruption in a country like Kenya — the embedded network.
This is something that should have happened in 2003 but a lack of presidential will and the fact that the civil service was led by elements of the same network meant it was not to be at the time.
Today, when you look through the list of officials who have been asked step aside or suspended due to the latest three scandals, you will see it includes civil servants who have served for prolonged periods of time in their departments, sometimes even refusing promotions and transfers.
These are the nuts and bolts that hold together an embedded network.
Such a network typically comprises middle to high-level officials in the civil and security services, briefcase business types and politicians.
The politicians are the most recyclable element of the whole structure.
The businessmen hold fast, though as a network unravels they have a tendency to get bumped off by unhappy co-conspirators in the security sector and bureaucracy.
As noted, the civil service players in these networks are interesting for the length of time they hold onto particular offices regardless of changes in administration.
These are not always top officials but mid-level rankers who are nevertheless often so powerful ministers call them for advice before penning letters to their own permanent secretaries.
New permanent secretaries can be tied up in knots by these old guard types with their creased suits, frayed collars and extensive landholdings in the east of Nairobi and their home districts.
With these key middle-level components of the network being sent home, the most confused lot in this town are those left in “acting capacities’ who don’t know where the real files are.
Brokers, briefcase businessmen, the relatives of the high and mighty and representatives of senior politicians are harassing them with calls to conclude deals in a highly unstable atmosphere.
John Githongo is CEO of Inuka Kenya and head of Twaweza Kenya
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