The Ministry of Water Sanitation and Irrigation now wants the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) involved in the implementation of the state dams’ projects to seal any corruption loopholes.
The ministry wants the investigative agency to be in charge of identifying, assessing, and mitigating potential risks and losses stemming from non-compliance with the policies, procedures, and work practices related to the development of these dams across the nation.
The Cabinet Secretary for Water Sanitation and Irrigation Zacharia Njeru, said that the move will be undertaken through the launch of a compliance risk monitoring system jointly with the EACC directorate of preventive services.
“We need to have a strong and effective risk monitoring systems as an integral part of ensuring transparency and accountability in the Ministry to ensure citizens get value and increase water access,” said CS Njeru.
To achieve results, he said there was a need for the implementers of the projects to have a good understanding of underlying risks which lurk internally, and have in place necessary preventive measures to seal loopholes of corruption and pilferage of public resources.
The collaboration comes after two major dam projects cost the Kenyan government £80m (Sh14.2 billion) despite having never been built.
The insurance bill was for the Arror and Kimwarer dams, planned to bring power and water to half a million people, where an Italian construction firm was commissioned.
Questions about why insurance was paid on the loans related to the dam scandal remain unanswered, igniting concerns that corruption continues to play a role in Kenya’s political and business life.
The CS said without supportive preventive measures the EACC has developed, the Ministry might face headwinds in identifying and sealing loopholes in transparency and accountability systems which might breed corruption and malfeasance in future.
The ministry emphasised the importance of complying with risk monitoring tools and monitoring interventions and reaffirmed its commitment to cooperating with EACC to make internal risk management systems even better to adhere to rule-based orders.
EACC Commissioner Colonel(Rtd) Alfred Mshimba and the director of preventive services Vincent Okong'o will lead the Agency’s officials in working with the Ministry to improve on Transparency, accountability and governance structures.
The EACC officials said the objective of working closely with the Ministries Department and Agencies was to ensure that the established risk monitoring systems and best practices were adopted across Government in the management of public affairs with utmost levels of transparency to curb corruption at all levels of projects’ implementation cycles.
