EACC has been able to trace and recover Sh9.76 billion worth of assets acquired corruptly between 2005 to date, CEO Halakhe Waquo has said.
Waqo said Sh7.5 million was recovered in the 2015/16 financial year along.
“Many of these assets have been lost through the facilitation of public officers. From April 2016 to date, 21 cases were concluded in court resulting in 18 convictions,” he said on Tuesday.
Waqo was speaking during a workshop on the implementation of Chapter Six of the Constitution
and the Leadership and Integrity Act, 2012 at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies, Nairobi.
He said 56 of the 147 investigations into ethical breaches initiated in the previous financial year had also been concluded over the 2015/16 period.
Many of the cases, Waqo said range from failure to declare income assets and liabilities, falsification of certificates, failure to declare conflict of interest and absconding duty.
The others are nepotism, misuse of public funds, sexual harassment, favouritsm and dual citizenship amongst others.
Waqo said presentation of fake certificates and dual citizenship by state officers was especially gaining notoriety at both the national and county government levels.
“Many university degrees presented during recruitments have been cited to be fake or false. A lot of officers in counties and some at the national level legislative houses have two passports yet some have been given senior positions."
The EACC boss also said they have written to all the counties concerning a trend where some governors are erecting their portraits on notice boards for government projects, pointing out Kilifi and Mombasa counties as examples.
Read:
“When entering Mombasa you see boards on road projects with governor Joho’s portrait. When you go to Kilifi you see Kingi with his projects. That now turns into campaign materials and it’s wrong,” Waqo said.
The CEO cited the introduction of systems review and corruption risk assessments in various county executives and assemblies and the facilitation of 41 public entities in the national government to develop leadership and integrity codes as other milestones they have achieved.
But Waqo said that the commission has faced various challenges in implementing Chapter Six and its enabling integrity laws mainly due to legal gaps.
“I am however happy that we are working with the office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice in pursuing necessary amendments to make the Act commensurate with the threshold of leadership and integrity as envisaged under Chapter Six,” Waqo said.
In a statement, Attorney General Githu Muigai assured the EACC of his support and said that his office has under the Anti-Corruption Laws (Amendment) Bill recommended that the commission becomes responsible for all state officers and be made the central depository for all wealth declarations.
Waqo called on commissions at both levels of government that are yet to submit by-annual wealth declaration forms for public officers for the last year to do so to enable the review process to begin.