The Building Bridges Initiative task force has recommended that government should immediately ban all public officers from doing business with government in a recommendation seen to aim to tame cases of corruption.
In the report, the Garissa Senator Yusuf Haji-led task force handed to President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday at State House and to be unveiled on Wednesday, the team says the government to reverse the 1970 Duncan Ndegwa Commission that allowed public officers to engage in business with government.
Ndegwa, who was then the chairman of Central Bank, concluded that civil servants should be allowed to engage in private business as a means of augmenting their poor pay which the late President Jomo Kenyatta's administration had admitted was unable to improve employment terms of civil servants.
While the law currently does not allow the public officers to do business with government, some use proxy companies to bid and lobby for multibillion tenders.
“The growing public perception of Kenya having a rigged system that rewards cronyism and corruption is the greatest risk to Kenya’s cohesion and security . Tackling corruption is the single most important mission for Kenya now,” the team said in a report seen by the Star.
In another explosive recommendation that is likely to cause jitters among the political class, the team which was tasked to look into nine issues bedeviling the country has also recommended that the annual wealth declaration forms by both public and state officers be made public.
At the moment, the President, the Deputy President and the Mps are only required to fill the wealth declaration forms and deposit them with Parliamentary Service Commission which is barred from opening them.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has been pushing for the forms to be made public so that it makes it easy to track wealth acquisition.
The task force report says government should digitize all its services, processes, payment system and record keeping calling on the tightening of protection of whistleblowers.
“Enable court procedures that guarantee the protection and safety and security of informants, whistleblowers and witnesses particularly regarding terrorism , serious transnational crimes and record keeping,” they said.
The task force has also pointed out that there is need to increase public confidence in judiciary and respect the separation of powers between the three arms of government.
“The independence of Judiciary must be protected as a fundamental principle and it should also be accountable to the people of Kenya,” they said.
