Reaction to admission of theft at NYS most perplexing

In June this year, the ever sprightly Devolution CS Anne Waiguru confidently assured Kenyans that her hawk eyes had spotted malfeasance in the making and promptly stopped it. Not a coin of taxpayers’ money was lost, she cooed. She forthwith sought to style herself as nothing short of a whistle blowing fairy thwarting impending looting of public coffers.

The usual choirs sang themselves hoarse to her prowess in protecting public funds. Those who raised pertinent queries on the corruption issue and the workings of the NYS in general were roughly dismissed. We were told that there could be smoke without there being a fire.

A so-called “grilling” session was convened by the Finance Committee of Parliament. Those of us who hoped that Parliament would seize the moment, step up and get to the bottom of the NYS corruption scandal were disappointed.

Jubilee MPs created a fracas that made it impossible for any sobriety to prevail. The Cabinet Secretary beamed all the while as the MPs tore into each other instead of the rot at NYS. Come September, with the “investigations” complete, the story has taken a different turn. A lot of questions abound about the legality of the so called “investigations”.

I mean there are dozens of whistleblowers in the country but you don’t see them being the ones to present the findings of the investigations by police, but that’s a story for another day.

Waiguru now admits that Sh791 million was lost in suspicious payments to various private companies. So, as it turns out, the claim that no money was lost was either criminally negligent or was malevolent concealment in what we always suspected was a botched effort at mitigation.

It would have been nice and dignified to see the Cabinet Secretary admit to having misled Kenyans, apologising and resigning.

Under Section 29 of the Leadership and Integrity Act, it is actually an offence for any State Officer to mislead the public. But the Jubilee government isn’t too keen on rule of law, just ask the teachers. Even now, after the revelations that hundreds of millions were lost, the choirs are undeterred. If anything, the pages have only become more vehement in their edicts that no blame shall be borne by the Cabinet Secretary.

We know it is not out of misplaced zeal that the choirs sing, it must be at somebody’s behest. These are very well kept pipers.

While some other cabinet secretaries have been languishing in the cold on mere suspicion of wrong doing within their departments Waiguru continues to nest safely in government even in the face of proof of the gross greed that pervades the NYS.

An observer at a distance must surely be bemused at Kenyan politics. It apparently matters not what scandal erupts, a dignified resignation is just simply never on the cards.

No matter the amount of evidence, no matter the level of deception, there are certain people to whom responsibility cannot be attributed. In fact it is becoming fashionable to be associated with every corruption scandal that breaks.

The cheerleading we see in support of those who should be under investigation is a damning diagnosis of our current state of affairs. It’s almost impossible to fathom just what scale of rot would be necessary to burden our leaders with sufficient guilt to induce anything other than the most virulent denial of any wrong doing. We have been assailed so much and so consistently by daily reports of theft that we have become numb and resigned.

In the end, this will just be another corruption scandal swept under the rug. As usual there will be no evidence to convict anyone. The half life of corruption matters in this country is incredibly short. In no time all these matters will have been relegated to obscure history. This Kenyans have learnt to accept.