The EACC report on corruption in the counties has nothing to do with the transfer of functions to the counties as envisioned in the constitution.
Rather the massive corruption the EACC reports is the manifestation of abuse of office and impunity we see in Kenya on a daily basis.
We are a society that glorifies corruption and evil things. Morally upright people are despised and oftentimes smoked out of town. Such people are humiliated on account of having not stolen when they had the opportunity. If you occupy a big office, your kith and kin menacingly surround and crowd you with only one desire: To share in your supposed loot.
Kenya has become a me-first society, where we willfully transgress against the law and the delivery of public goods and services is no longer sacrosanct. Public duty is delivered with rank and unmitigated impunity.
We lack the moral drive in the public space. And there can be no better confirmation than the fact that people must be policed to work.
The rot in the counties is clear proof that there are no policing mechanisms to forestall corruption in all facets of public life, the counties included.
We seriously need enforcement mechanisms. The bad thing is that we have them, but they are ineffectual. How many people have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted either in the counties or at national level, despite the perverse nature of this sickness?
In the counties, we have establishment institutions that have impacted the people in a big and powerful way. But we can't leave them to their own devices, especially now that we cannot trust those who are in charge.
My proposal would be that we need a special department at the EACC, the Directorate of Public Prosecutions and the Office of the Auditor General to have a very special interest in the counties.
I will disagree with all those who say that it might have been too early to give the counties the full mandate to run their own affairs. The time was right. When you set up systems it doesn't matter whether you implement right away or in stages.
Given another opportunity, I will do exactly what I did. Because it is my duty, and all other Kenyans’, to ensure that our systems work.
The EACC has done its work.
- Wamwangi is the former chairman of the Transition Authority