Kenyans have never seen the level and depth of investigation produced by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission or the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Ben Gethi’s case in real time.
The template has been that millions, even billions, go missing, suspects are named, selected senior ministers and other officials are also named, even briefly arrested, and, or step aside and resign.
The money is never recovered, no arrests are ever made and no one goes to jail.
Where did the EACC and DCI suddenly get all the personnel, equipment and complete element-of-surprise tactics and strategies?
It would appear the EACC and DCI are both rapid response beneficiaries of anti-corruption funding, equipment, personnel, trainings and oversight obtained through a number of anti-graft agreements signed between President Barack Obama and President Uhuru Kenyatta in Nairobi in July.
That something major is in the works was also signaled by unprecedented visit of 11 Western powers’ envoys to Kenya to the EACC’s Integrity Centre HQ on November 12. Afterwards they issued a joint statement on US State Department letterhead, declaring corruption in Kenya a crisis.
Led by US Ambassador Robert Godec, UK High Commissioner Christian Turner, Canadian chargé d'affaires Jamie Christoff, Finish Ambassador Tarja Fernández, French Ambassador Remi Marechaux, German Ambassador Jutta Frasch, Japanese Deputy Ambassador Mikio Mori, Dutch Deputy Head of Mission Marielle Geraedts, Norwegian Ambassador Victor Rønneberg, Swedish Ambassador Johan Borgstam and Swiss Ambassador Ralf Heckner insisted those named in graft must be probed and prosecuted if there was credible evidence linking them to misuse of public resources.
Ben Gethi is not a major player in the corruption food chain. The coming year must produce multiple, preferably more than 100, instances of the corrupt big fish investigated and audited up-to-the-minute just like Gethi and then swiftly prosecuted on the basis of this credible evidence.
No anti-corruption case should take more than a year and the sentences must be truly deterrent, particularly the seizure of the assets of graft.
In the digital era surveillance, forensic audits and assets seizures should not involve armies of detectives and investigators that make a living out of concealing the sort of information and data the Assets Recovery Agency has gathered in the Gethi case.