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Crossroads of Corruption As one African state cleans up its act, another continues to betray its people, finds Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg 3rd
March 2003 Kenya Newly elected Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, his government and ordin ary Kenyans have launched one of the biggest house cleanings in post-colonial African history. Kenyans, fed up with their east African country being branded as one of the most corrupt nations on Earth, are fighting back against corruption. Ordinary people, reading the deter mination of Kibaki to crack down on crooked officials, are refusing to pay what were once routine bribes for jobs and basic government services. Commuters have begun assaulting much-feared police officers who for decades routinely demanded bribes from drivers. 'Corruption in Kenya was systemic, endemic ,' said Mwalimu Mati, director of the east African office of the anti-corruption group Transparency International. 'Petty corruption was the most insidious, because it affected the poor and women. The police routinely checked people driving home and if you didn't have your national identity card they would say, 'Give us 100 shillings.' If you didn't have the money, they arrested you.' Nine out of 10 Kenyans surveyed by Transparency said their encounters with police led to demands for bribes. 'But now police officers who dare to utter the traditional Swahili euphemism for bribery -- 'tuo kitu kidogo ya chai' or 'give a little something for tea' -- are being confronted by angry Kenyans shouting the newest catch-phrase: 'Rudisha kila kitu' or 'Give everything back,'' added Mati. While ordinary Kenyans are taking on low-level officials, Kibaki is busy cleaning out corrupt officials in top positions. Chief Justice Bernard Chunga, immediately attacked by Kibaki over allegations of venality under former President Daniel Arap Moi, resigned last week. He was replaced by Justice Evans Gacheru, the most senior and longest-serving Kenyan High Court and Court of Appeal judge. Chunga is being investigated in rel ation to the torture of dissidents opposed to the Arap Moi regime . Moi's Kenya National Union (Kanu) had ruled the country for nearly 40 years before Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition won one of only two multi-party elections since independence from Britain. Kibaki last week also appointed a judicial commission to investigate the biggest and most complex financial scandal in Kenya's history. The commission, headed by two judges, will re-examine the so-called Goldenberg Affair, which came to light in 1994, in which a Kenyan businessman and three senior government officials were accused of defrauding the government of £160 million between October 1992 and July 1993. Governor Nahashon Nyagah of the Central Bank of Kenya and commissioner general John Munge of the Kenya Revenue Authority were sacked last week, accused of defrauding their organisations of more than £150,000. The top brass of both the Kenyan Army and Air Force have been removed. Former Army chief, General Lazarus Sumbeiywo has been replaced by General Jeremiah Mutinda Kianga. The new head of Kenya's national police force, Commissioner Edwin Nyaseda, has reorganised his traffic department in an attempt to stamp out the corruption left by his predecessor. Kanu MPs have been given two weeks to surrender land illegally allocated to them by Moi. Meanwhile, the 28-storey state-owned Kenyatta International Conference Centre, appropriated by Moi as Kanu's headquarters, has been reclaimed for the state . Announcing the changes, Kibaki said: 'Corruption has undermined our economy, our politics and our national psyche. It has undermined our most important institutions and tarnished our reputation as Kenyan leaders.' Zimbabwe As Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis relentlessly deepens, Africa's other leaders have steadily increased their support for Zimbabwe's corrupt and much reviled President Robert Mugabe. The recent call by the presidents of Nigeria and South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki, for the lifting of Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth has outraged the country's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, on trial for his life on trumped-up charges that he plotted to assassinate Mugabe, has blasted African leaders and the 116-member Non-Aligned Movement (which represents developing countries worldwide) for comforting Mugabe while Zimbabweans suffer gross human rights abuses, lawlessness and muzzling of the press. 'Expressing solidarity with, and active support for, a nakedly vile and murderous dictatorship in Zimbabwe is a betrayal of cherished human rights values,' said Tsvangirai. 'While African heads of state and the Non-Aligned Movement are giving comfort to Mugabe, they are totally betraying ordinary Zimbabweans who queue for hours, sometimes days, for such basic commodities as mealie meal, bread, salt and cooking oil.' Commenting on the Non-Aligned Movement's recent summit in Kuala Lumpur, which called for the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe and condemned the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for withdrawing financial aid to the country, Tsvangirai said: 'The resolution is based on a deliberate distortion of the reality of the Zimbabwe crisis. The crisis is a crisis of cruel and corrupt governance. 'Contrary to the public positions of the Mugabe regime, our crisis has never been about land. Mugabe has used the land issue as an alibi to cover up crimes against humanity and a strategy to remain illegally in power. 'What is at issue are the violent and unsustainable methods employed by Mugabe which have reduced a once vibrant and highly-productive agricultural sector to a wasteland.' Life is tough in the countryside. The United Nations says that eight million of Zimbabwe's 12 million people face starvation as a result of Mugabe's chaotic land policies. World Food Programme director James Morris last week said the humanitarian crisis caused by Mugabe was 'almost beyond comprehension'. 'It's a disaster,' he added. In six meetings with Mugabe in the last six months about the damage being done to food production by politics, crazy economics and corrupt bureaucracy, Morris said he had made no headway. Under Mugabe's land 'reforms', thousands of recently productive farms are completely idle and food output this year is expected to be one-third of normal levels. 'Mugabe's scheme, featuring occupation by government ministers and officials of once prosperous farms, restrictions on private sector food marketing, and a state monopoly on food imports, are turning a drought that might have been managed into a humanitarian nightmare,' said Morris. The fact that about one-third of the adult population has been infected by the HIV virus was compounding the problem. 'Countless numbers of Zimbabwean children are now heading households,' said Morris. Life is not much easier in the towns and cities. Zimbabweans dryly wished each other 'happy queue year' as 2003 heralded ever-longer lines to obtain basic necessities. Most Zimbabweans' days are spent finding food and fuel. Long queues stretch down roads for miles. The substantial numbers of Zimbabweans of Scottish origin have revived an old joke, asking why their country is called Disneyland and replying : 'Because it disnae have bread, it disnae have butter, it disnae have petrol, it disnae have salt and it disnae have an elected government.' Pressure on the opposition MDC -- which failed to win power in elections in 2000 and 2002, which non-African observer missions said were blatantly rigged -- has been unremitting. In the past three years more than 100 party supporters have been murdered by police and government youth militias. MDC MPs have been imprisoned and tortured, forcing many of them into exile. 'African leaders have betrayed us,' said the MDC's Job Sikhala, who has been arrested 17 times in the past three years. During his most recent arrest, police applied electrodes to his tongue and genitals for eight hours and repeatedly urinated on him. 'This regime has lost control of its senses,' said 30-year-old Sikhala. 'It should not be recognised by anyone.' Sunday Herald, UK |
