Western donors urge action on reports of corruption and bad governance

Western donors on Thursday urged the Kenyan government to act on reports of corruption and bad governance. They said graft was hurting Kenya and affecting efforts to put the East African country on track towards achieving development goals.

"We share the deep concern felt by the Kenyan people about lack of good governance and the damage it causes to the nation's welfare and the effective operation of its institutions," the European Union (EU) said in a statement signed by representatives of its member states and the European Commission's delegation in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

"The creation of the machinery to fight corruption was welcomed," it noted. "These institutions have been impeded in their operations and this week's resignation of the PS in the Office of Governance and Ethics has further emphasised the loss of credibility of the government in its political will to fight corruption."

"The government of Kenya must take the lead by addressing governance and especially corruption as part of an urgent effort to try to put Kenya back on track towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals," the statement added.

The statement followed a scathing attack on official corruption on 2 February by the UK high commisioner in Nairobi, Edward Clay, who told reporters: "Corruption is the single biggest impediment to good governance in Kenya [...] Many stones remain unturned … many, many stones."

Clay said he had given President Mwai Kibaki a dossier of 20 new corruption cases expected to cost Kenyans millions of dollars.

Days after Clay's attack, John Githongo, the highest ranking anti-corruption official in the government, resigned as Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President in charge of Governance and Ethics. In a message to Kibaki, sent from London on Monday, Githongo said he was no longer able to carry out his duties.

On Tuesday, the US ambassador to Kenya, William Bellamy, told a business meeting in Nairobi: "Corruption in Kenya isn’t a matter of ‘kitu kidogo’ [literally 'something small' in Kiswahili; a euphemism for 'bribe'], or of a few ministers skimming off commissions. It is big enough to cause macro-economic distortions."

Bellamy said the US government would withhold US $2.5 million in aid to Kenya's anti-corruption campaign until it "could gain a clear picture of the government’s true intentions".

Local NGOs and church leaders joined the fray, saying the government was not doing enough to fight corruption. Twenty NGO leaders called a news conference on Tuesday and insisted the government needed to come clean on allegations that some senior officials had been involved in corrupt acts.

Several cabinet ministers, however, told reporters in this week that despite the attack by Clay and Githongo’s resignation, the will to contain corruption was still very strong within the government.

Foreign Minister Ali Makwere told a news conference on Tuesday: "Our audit reports show clearly that we are fighting corruption […] the ambassador [Clay] seems to know more that what he is telling us. The corruption fight is ours, not his."

Local Government Minister Musikari Kombo said the government would “not give up the fight”, while Labour Minister Newton Kulundu said those making allegations of corruption against unnamed government officials needed to provide evidence.

On Saturday, Vice President Moody Awori had urged "some western envoys not to malign Kenya’s name".

The current government came to power in 2003 after campaigning against corruption and other perceived ills. It appointed Githongo, who was working for the anti-corruption NGO, Transparency International, to head a new department in the presidential office that would advise Kibaki on how to fight corruption and declared “zero tolerance” for graft.

However, in a report on global perceptions of corruption released in December, Transparency International ranked Kenya 122th out of 133 nations on a scale of least to most corrupt countries. It estimated that corruption could have cost Kenya up to $ 975 million in the last three years.