How allegiance undermines graft war in Kenya

The arrest of Ronald Kiprotich Melly who had been serving as the Medical Superintendent of Health at Meteitei Sub-County Hospital in Nandi County without requisite qualifications to render medical services is the latest indication of the bottomless depths to which we have sunk as a country on ethical and corruption issues.

Melly’s case is the latest validation of a study conducted earlier in the year by the Aga Khan’s East African Institute (EAI) that revealed 50 per cent of youth in Kenya do not care what means one uses to make money as long as they do not end up in jail.

Dubbed the Kenya Youth Survey Report, the study also revealed that 30 per cent of the youth who were interviewed exuded the belief that corruption is profitable with 35 percent ready to give or receive a bribe. According to the study, only 40 percent of the polled strongly believed that it was important to pay taxes.

A similar situation was displayed in the political arena where 62 per cent of the youth were noted to be vulnerable to electoral bribery with 40 per cent confessing that they would only vote for aspirants who bribe them.

Melly’s appetite for easy pay without having to labour so much seems likely to take him to jail. But if he’s driven by the same mantra that saw him get posted as a senior medical officer of health without finishing his university education and internship, then we should be prepared for more drama.

In Kenya, people who come from the “right places and families, and support the right political alliances” do not get jailed, let alone being charged in court for such unethical and corrupt practices.

Take the case of Fazul Mahamed Yusuf. Like Melly, investigations by the Commission for Administrative Justice recently confirmed that Yusuf did not finish his university education but was still able to get employed as the Executive Director of the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordination Board.

When Mr Yusuf’s predecessor, Dr Hezron Mac’Obewa, was being considered for the same position, applicants were required to be in possession of a master’s degree.

But this was lowered for reasons that only the Board and the parent Ministry of Devolution and Planning knows better when Yusuf was offered the job in 2014.

An advert in the Standard Newspaper listed a bachelor’s degree as the minimum educational requirement for the position, with a rider that “post-graduate qualification would be an added advantage”. Mr. Yusuf had none of the above, having been discontinued from Egerton University according to the Registrar in charge of Academic Affairs at the institution, Prof E.F.O. Owido.

Yet Mr Yusuf was able to dupe the Board and the interviewing panel with a degree certificate purportedly issued by Egerton University.

When matters came to a head early this year, after his comportment did not seem to match his curriculum vitae, Yusuf is reported to have confiscated his personal file from the Human Resource Manager at the board, going ahead to “transfer” the HRM to some remote location in Garissa County, ostensibly “to open a satellite office of the regulatory authority in the region”.

Like Melly, Mr Yusuf seems to enjoy protection of highly placed people in the corridors of power and influence.

He is said to be negotiating with the Secretary to the Cabinet to have his docket moved to the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government after falling out with the CS for Devolution and Planning Mwangi Kiunjuri.

And when the Civil Society Reference Group held a demonstration to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption (EACC) offices at Integrity Centre in October this year, EACC Executive Director Halakhe Waqo, in response to our petition gave us a long lecture on what he vaguely referred to as “due process”, calling on our “restraint to enable the commission carry out investigations into the matter professionally”.

Halakhe Waqo was simply saying since Yusuf was in the right camp politically, sorting out the “evil society” that played a role in taking some national leaders to The Hague over allegations of crimes against humanity, investigations into allegations of Yusuf’s possible forgery of academic papers to secure a job at the NGO Board would not be concluded any time soon.

It is little wonder that even after falling out with the Devolution and Planning CS, Yusuf is reportedly in the process of moving the NGO Board to the Ministry of Interior with the support and approval of highly placed and powerful Government officials, his unethical and corrupt practices notwithstanding!

That is how anti-corruption agencies are “slaying the dragon of corruption and unethical practices in Kenya”!