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Is kenya on Auction

Everywhere you turn you get an impression that Kenya is on auction: Headlines of public land grabbed for private development, Parliamentary debates on accusations and counter accusations of politicians alleged to have taken bribes, political leaders and civil servants being pushed left right and centre to resign owing to graft allegations, scandals being exposed, security crisis, education crisis, land crisis and millions of many other problems all blamed on corruption as their root cause. Is this a country on auction, everyone trying to get a piece of it before everything is taken? The saddest part is that it's not only the material wealth of the nation that is under threat but also its moral and social wealth. Early this year Principal Secretary for Defence, Mutea Iringo, invited hundreds of Kenyan leaders to his village school, Njuki Njiru Primary School in Meru. Several MPs and other leaders spent the day interacting with pupils inspiring them to succeed in education. I visited the Njuki Njiru community a few days ago and the hope that dominated the community on that ceremony day has fallen really low. Their local hero, Mutea Iringo, has stepped aside owing to allegations of graft. The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament that brought allegations against Mutea has been dissolved while the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission (EACC) that was supposed to investigate him is in a mess. Worse, the 60-day presidential directive to investigate the corruption cases is long gone, but success seems far beyond reach. Amid these gloomy headlines, we are slowly but surely destroying the moral fabric of this nation. Even during the peak of the Goldenberg days when I was in primary school, it never seemed to be this bad. Today, one is almost certain that tomorrow's headline will be about corruption.Today Kenyan children grow up thinking that to succeed, one must be a thief since all they read and and watch are stories of Kenyan public and private sector leaders with numerous accusations of corruption. Today many people across the world look at Kenyans with an eye of suspicion. Did we really have to sink this low? Definitely no! On Kenya's integrity chain, EACC is probably the weakest link. This institution has brought about much of the mess we have now. Did it have to wait for the President's address to Parliament in order to act? But the weakness of Kenya's systems does not end here. I sincerely admire President Uhuru Kenyatta's determination to make Kenya a better place. However, his daily struggles expose a nation with serious structural weaknesses. It had to take the President's visit to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for the relevant offices to investigate a scandal that had been ongoing for weeks: the airport buses scandal. It had to take a President's directive to have the Kenya Police and the Provincial Administration do what they should have been doing for years now: fighting illegal liquor that has been killing thousands of Kenyans. It had to take the President's address at Mumias for the Eacc to promise they will move to recover wealth built from graft. These were noble directions from the President but the system must work even before the President pushes it. It's now time Kenya demands productivity from the thousands of government officers who sit in offices but do little or no work at all.These are the people causing all this mess. Of great concern are the investigating officers at EACC, Criminal Investigations Department, the Auditor General, Director of Public Prosecutions and many other oversight offices of the land. It's out of their laxity that investigations into several allegations of graft have delayed hence a number of cabinet secretaries and other senior government officials have stepped aside but continue to earn salaries at the expense of the tax payer without offering any service to the country. It's out of their laxity that our dear nation seems to be like a nation on auction, whereas no major graft case has been concluded to establish where the truth really lies.

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