A litany of theft yet no one accounts for it

Auditor General Nancy Gathungu. [File, Standard]

The litany of theft Auditor General Nancy Gathungu unveils every other day leaves one with several conclusions: we are either a very rich country with a bottomless treasury; that most Kenyans are corrupt (only that most don’t get the opportunity to line their pockets) or the justice system has failed. Or all three.

Like Sisyphus, we seem stuck in a perpetual battle against the corruption grindstone, a battle we seem to have lost and all we can do now is watch helplessly as the rodents gnaw at the bones of what is left of this country. They finished with the flesh eons ago.

Today, a billion shillings has lost meaning. If a corruption deal does not breach the billon shilling mark, its not worth a mention in the news. That is considered petty theft by Kenyan standards. We have grown immune to news of corruption.

I sometimes visualise a meeting of these hoodlums in some exclusive members’ club (they no longer dwell in seedy, smoky downtown bars discussing their latest heist).

“Hey, what’s the latest on the deal you mentioned the other day?”

“Ahh, this time I hit them a good one. You see that limo? How do you think I acquired it in this hard economy ha ha ha! What about you?”

“I am working on something. You will see me on the front page of the newspapers. Just bide your time brother. Just you wait.

“My people at treasury are asking for a rather unreasonable commission but I will mollify them accordingly.”

It might sound like a scene from a cheap Nigerian movie but I have a buddy who told me there are clubs in Nairobi where these gangsters in suits meet up for a canapé to touch base on their latest scams.

Whether it’s e-citizen, health, counties you name it the corruption that Gathungu’s office brings to light is of gargantuan proportions.

Just the other day, the report highlighted daylight robbery of e-citizen amounting to Sh45 billion, a heist that appears to have stolen the headlines for a day or two until another scandal erupted. Now, e-citizen was to be the cure for the ‘manual’ theft orchestrated by bureaucrats in their dusty little offices, with files stacked from floor to ceiling.

But e-citizen has turned out to be a trojan horse, a platform to allow the thieves inside government safe where the money is kept.

What we appeared to have done is digitise corruption and make it ever-so-easy for the thugs to steal from their desktop.

What bothers me is that we have become so accustomed to grand theft that we read these Auditor’s reports with a sense of detachment because we know nobody will be held accountable. Those mentioned usually do not even bother to dignify the reports with any explanation, however weak, on whether the report is true or not. 

Meanwhile, the culprits continue prancing about in Gucci shoes and crocodile leather belts, bouncing from one county to another with their newly acquired helicopters, which, by some coincidence, had import duties substantially reduced only the other day.

Funny thing is, as a buddy mentioned, this lady Gathungu will never receive any medals (literally and metaphorically) for the work she’s doing.

While some nondescript fellows who have never engaged in a decent day’s work parade their OGWs, EBSs etc, the only appendage she can put after her name is the educational qualifications she has rightfully earned.

Also, as a country we suffer from collective amnesia; we forget things that happened only yesterday, perhaps conveniently. I will give an example: the ‘old’ road from Westlands to Mlolongo was initially to be repaired by the company that build the Expressway. They didn’t.

Come the new administration and a new firm was engaged at a cost of a few billions to make it motorable. Last week, we heard that a Chinese firm has been given a contract to re-do the same road. We are truly a rich country.

-The writer is a communications consultant