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Positive Developments on the Corruption Front |
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Written by Stephen Wanyama
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Friday, 13 April 2007 |
Most
Kenyans, at least those who know something about most things, will have greeted
the appointment of Richard Leakey to the headship of the local Transparency
International Chapter with scepticism.
Kenyans may
also look at the mainstream Kenyan media and its abdication of its duty as the
public watchman and despair. The newspapers, the radio stations and the
television stations have taken such strident biased positions that the mwananchi would be better served paying
little attention to its fictions. Such Kenyans would be encouraged then to know
that no matter how poor a job Leakey does at TI, or how compromised he is seen
to be from the start or what Transparency International now stands for, it
having gained a reputation for being kinder to the government than the
government's own agencies; there are now other guardians of the public purse.
The new
organisation set up around former TI head Mwalimu Mati is one of these. Mars
Kenya which runs a website that tracks and catalogues governance and corruption
issues. The team at Mars Kenya has proved to be more responsive than your
average Kenyan organisation, responding to email and showing an all around
better grasp of Kenyan issues than the average Kenyan organisation. In addition
to the information on their website, the organisation also publishes books that
seek to hold the government accountable to the public. Among these is one on an
Anglo-Leasing type contract worth 39 million US$ surrounding the VSAT
project at Postal Corporation of Kenya while another one of these
highlights the mystery
of the missing irrevocable Promissory Notes given to Anglo Leasing and Finance
Limited by the Government of Kenya.
The Treasury
has also opened a new website, for its Public Procurement
Oversight Authority where the keen citizen can track information on
contracts exceeding Kshs. 5 Million awarded by various Public Entities, including parastatals and government corporations.
All around, the 21st century and technological
advancement seem to have come together to give the Kenyan citizen the power to
know more about the conduct of their government, and the opportunity to hold
their government to account for its use of public finances and other governance
issues. Whether we take those opportunities on board is now entirely up to us.
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Stephen Wanyama |
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However something more needs to be done along the lines of ;
-Faster prosecution and determination of corruption cases.
-Unrelenting push on changing public perception of the gains of corruption
-Above all trying harder to get minimize the informal economy that is adept at tax--evasion.
Looking at public procurement oversight Board's website , its a ver positive development, but it brings out very minimal information about the contracts.
It would be great if the following functionalities were added;
-The current state of the project implementation - Including the period set for its completion and how far in reality it has taken, the value the contract was supposed to add to taxpayers and whether that is being realised if completed.
-The Key differentiating aspects that made the specific tender board go for provider X other than the other tendering organisations. (either cost or execution efficiency).
These added transparency tools will only plant a seed of competitiveness in firms bidding for the state's work helping push productivity with a multiplier effect to citizens working in those firms and an upward growth of integrity-aligned way of doing business in the country.