BIGGEST CORRUPTION SCANDALS IN KENYA EXPOSED

Just so we do not forget, here is a list of some of the the corruption scandals plaguing Kenya, while on one hand its citizens pay taxes into the same corrupt coffers, and on the other, some die from the direct effects of these scandals. Since they are too many to list here, do have a look at the almost complete list at wikipedia
1. The longest-running is the Goldenberg scandal, where the Kenyan government subsidized exports of gold, paying exporters in Kenyan Shillings (Sh) 35% over their foreign currency earnings. In this case, the gold was smuggled from Congo. The Goldenberg scandal cost Kenya the equivalent of more than 10% of the country’s annual GDP.
2. A Sh360 million helicopter servicing contract in South Africa. Military officers had argued that the contract was too extravagant and servicing the helicopters could be done locally. Kenya Air Force (KAF) went ahead to spend Sh108 million as a down payment for servicing the Puma helicopters, whose tail number is logged as 418 at Denel Aviation, a South African firm.
3. A Sh4.1 billion Navy ship deal. A Navy project was given to Euromarine, a company associated with Anura Pereira, the tender awarded in a process that has been criticised as irregular. The tender was worth Sh4.1 billion. Military analysts say a similar vessel could have been built for Sh1.8 billion.
4. Kamsons Motors tendered for the supply of Mahindra Jeeps to the Police Department in the mid 1990s for close to Sh1 million (US$13,000) each, at a time when showrooms would have charged customers a sixth of the price. Moreover, the vehicles were being bought for a government department and were therefore imported duty free. Few of the more than 1,000 units that were imported over several years are in service today.
5. The Prisons department lost $3 million after contracting Hallmark International, a company associated with Mr Deepak Kamani of Kamsons Motors, for the supply of 30 boilers. Only half of the boilers were delivered – from India and not the United States as had been agreed.
6. The construction of Nexus, a secret military communication centre in Karen, Nairobi. The Government, through the Ministry of Transport, spent Sh2.6 billion (US$36.9 million) to construct the complex. Three years later, military personnel have not moved into the centre. A phantom company, Nedermar BV Technologies, which is said to have its headquarters in Holland, implemented the secret project. The tendering process for the Nexus project was circumvented.
7. Between January 2003 and September 2004, the National Rainbow Coalition government spent about $12-million on cars that were mostly for the personal use of senior government officials. The vehicles included 57 Mercedes-Benz, as well as Land Cruisers, Mitsubishi Pajeros, Range Rovers, Nissan Terranos and Nissan Patrols. The $12-million substantially exceeded what the government spent over the 2003/04 financial year on controlling malaria — “the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Kenya”.
8. In 2005 plans to buy a sophisticated £20 million passport equipment system from France. Here government wanted to replace its passport printing system. The transaction was originally quoted at 6 million euros from François Charles Oberthur of Paris – the world’s leading supplier of Visa and MasterCards, but was awarded to a British firm, the Anglo-Leasing and Finance Company Limited, at 30 million euros, who would have sub-contracted the same French firm to do the work.
9. On 31 August 2007, The Guardian newspaper featured on its front page a story about more than GBP 1 billion transferred out of Kenya by the family and associates of former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi. The Guardian sourced the information from the Wikileaks article The looting of Kenya under President Moi and its analysis of a leaked investigative document (“the Kroll report”) prepared for the Kibaki government in 2004 in order to try to recover money stolen during Moi’s rule.
10. In June 2008, the Grand Regency Scandal broke, wherein the Central Bank of Kenya is alleged to have secretly sold a luxury hotel in Nairobi to an unidentified group of Libyan investors for more than 4 billion Kenyan Shillings (approx US $60 million) below the appraised market value. Finance Minister Amos Kimunya negotiated the sale, and was censured in a near-unanimous motion by the Kenyan Parliament, though he vehemently denied the charges.
11. More than 80,000 bags of maize valued at Sh150 million were allocated to briefcase millers and a defunct company in Nakuru at a time when the country is facing a serious shortage of maize. Some of the maize, which was meant to cushion Kenyans against rising maize flour prices and a looming famine, was sold in Southern Sudan for US$80 (Sh6,000) for a 90 kg bag. The allocation operation was running parallel to government efforts to avert a looming famine facing some 10 million Kenyans, as reported by Nation on the maize scandal.
12. More than $1 million is missing from the country’s free primary education program.
*Do not forget the above*
Nor should you forget that there are still IDPs in camps, and many bodies riddled by police bullets, some yet to be claimed.
The problem with Kenyans is that we are not tenacious, or we have the languor/ apathy that come over time due to year after year of unsolved issues. Recapping the last 10 years, not one year goes by without a scandal of such a magnitude that rocks the nation. However, less that 1% of them are solved, including the prosecutions that started rolling on the Goldenberg scandal (my favourite example) with the protagonist off and looking forward to vying for elections come next elections.
What has become of us Kenyans? What has become of every docket and office in the country? What happened to the judiciary? Every time there is a new appointment into the judiciary especially, our hopes go sky rocketing high believing that our problems will be solved.
This is for us the common mwanachi.The best thing would not be to sit on the side and watch all these unfold, have it as the topical conversations as we have our beers or teas, but to come together in a non-violent coup of civil society, taking to the streets as we did during the referendum. The hope should not be lost, and we have to demand this over and over without tiring. It is for example disappointing to see a growing middle class ensconced in their own protected worlds, with high walls and barbed wire, their little comfort zones that shield them from the rest of the country’s troubles. The middle calss have an education and a voice that can be hailed and make quite some addition in the discourse.
How about other organisations? There are legal brains and NGOs in our midst who can take up cases to the courts and keep up the pressure. We have the media which will keep all the past scandals and progress of them high o-n the national and international agenda. We have other individuals and organisations that can take up other non-legal issues. These, especially the NGOs are too fragmented in their agendas, wanting above all funds and recognition at the behest of their managers who are more interested in being competitive in raising funds for their little empires. Does anyone out there have any though for those of us who are dying from hunger from the maize scandal, or who cannot get good education for our children? There should be unity in action, and this needs to come now.
As for the leadership and politicians, there needs to be an overhaul of these corrupt tribal minions trying to make a quick buck and a big name before their term of office expires. Using these scandals (who knows to what extent they have engineered them and are using them to achieve their political motives), they go on a dog-fight to achieve their political ambitions. What to do about them? is a question that is currently in everyones mind.
Remember how when the current parliament held session for the first time after elections, the first thing they did was to raise their pay packages (converted into Euro, is more than what an MP earns in Germany), and push not to pay taxes? How worse can it get? We as the common mwananchi have the power to oust them. Let us not elect tribal leaders but well versed individuals, who understand Kenya and its problems, who want to change it for the best. We elected them and we should be careful not to make the same mistake repeatedly. Our vote holds tomorrow’s change.