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I watched closely the
governance and accountability summit at state House. I was happy to see people
discuss freely while others were seen to be intimidating other participants.
The President said that Auditor-General Edward Ouko had indicated that he
wanted to travel to New York to interview Federal Reserve Bank officials,
following claims that they could have taken part in falsifying Kenya’s records. Mr Ouko said that his
work was to simply determine the authenticity of statements already presented
by the government concerning the transactions so he can file a final report on
the matter. Criticising Mr Ouko,
President Kenyatta said: “Na huyu amesema anataka kuenda kuinterrogate (And
this man here says he wants to interrogate) Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Ngai! (My
God!) Anyway, you know, you sit back and you ask yourself, are we being serious
in what we are doing?” The accountability
summit was meant to be an occasion for the government to demonstrate how it is
fighting corruption not intimidation to officers. DPP wants Waititu, wife jailed over Sh588m fraud Graft, political shenanigans will be the end of us How impunity and corruption fuel disasters and claim Kenyan lives EACC to grill officials from three counties on Sh400m graft claims However, it was
punctuated by accusations and counter-accusations by government officials more
keen to defend their respective turfs against allegations of incompetence, and
blaming others for the failure to tackle corruption. I would like to
reiterate that this is a waste of tax payers’ money because nothing tangible was
reached at in the summit. I also blame the Attorney General for blaming our
courts yet he is one of the commissioner. Is this the way we should conduct
business? What happened to the
driver who narrated on how the traffic officers take bribes? He was threatened with
arrest and the Inspector General lost words when other officers said that they
would defend him from arrest. This is a bad show that government institutions
are working without really coordinating for the common good of the people of
Kenya. You don’t hit your critics but inquire more about the corruption issues.
The summit looked like punching each other and later take tea and thengo home
without having reached a conclusion and better yet a resolution.
READ MORE
Was it a summit of intimidation and blame game?
By Pst Josphat Nyamwange
| Oct. 23, 2016
