It takes two to tango
If you want to see what corruption leads to, look around you. Look at the recent front pages of the national newspapers, which printed photos of the bloodied bodies of three men executed by Kenya’s police officers after their arrest on a busy road during rush hour .
Look at the indictments issued by an international court late last year for six men, including top Kenyan politicians, accused of involvement in political violence that killed many hundreds.
Look at the one-third of the annual government budget that finance ministry officials themselves say goes astray in a typical year, or the multi- billion dollar scandals for which no one ever seems to face justice.
But if you want to see where corruption starts, look in the mirror. Everyone is at it: paying bribes to government officials, civil servants, teachers, doctors and, of course most common, police.
Corruption breeds impunity, and impunity allows extrajudicial killings, political violence and wholesale fraud to take root. The graft, which embarrasses Kenyans and leaves the country languishing at the bottom of yearly regional and global corruption rankings, begins at street-level with the small bribes and un- receipted fines that are slipped into palms every day.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, somewhere in Westlands, and I had just done a U-turn when my heart sank. There in front of me was a sight no Nairobi motorist wants to see: a policeman, one arm raised to stop me, the other clutching a mobile phone and pointing to the roadside, a prosperous belly flopping over his belt and a smirk on his face.
“Hello sir!” he said merrily. “Now, we have a problem. Do you know what I am stopping you for?” A common ploy: get the driver to incriminate himself. The officer said I had caused an obstruction on this empty road by performing an illegal U-turn. I disagreed; he insisted. He said we’d be going to the police station; I said let’s go. He asked if I wanted him to help me; I said no... And there it was, in just a few seconds: the invitation to bribe my way out of trouble.
This time I refused. The result of that refusal was hours in a police station, a 5,000 shillings refundable bail payment, an entire morning spent on a first court appearance, another bail payment, this time of 10,000 shillings, an afternoon visit to a downtown lawyer to be advised that if I hadn’t killed anyone I should plead guilty and pay the fine and, finally, a second morning-long court appearance and at last a 3,000 shillings fine.
“The problem is that our legal system, our justice system, does not work,” said the lawyer I consulted. “It is slow, cumbersome and expensive. My advice is, pay the bribe. Save yourself a lot of trouble,” he said.
And so next time, perhaps I will slip the arresting officer 500 shillings, maybe 1,000 shillings, and save myself time and money. Faced with the alternative – an expensive and time- consuming process – does anyone really want the little bribe, the kitu kidogo, to disappear?
It is the oil that makes the system work for you. It jumps you to the front of the queue at the over-subscribed school, it means your package from the post office emerges quickly from the backroom, that your child’s birth certificate or employee’s work permit is stamped and issued quickly, that your mother gets to see the doctor before it’s too late. The list is endless and reaches into every nook of public life.
As for the man or woman who receives the bribe, it is sometimes a much-needed supplement to a meagre income, not just a way of life but a means of survival. But every shilling that passes into a private pocket instead of the public purse is taking away from proper investment that could fix the broken system.
The fact that corruption works, on an individual basis and in the short term, makes it all the harder to fight, but it also means that the power to battle it is in the hands of the wananchi.
The likes of the Kenya Anti- Corruption Commission with its new found vigour under Director Patrick Lumumba, or the International Criminal Court whose chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, has his sights fixed on Kenyan politicians are beginning to tackle the highest branches of corruption, but the roots are for ordinary folk to deal with. By refusing to pay the traffic cop a little something the culture of corruption can be fought from the bottom up, tackling the little acts of criminality that poison the entire system.
Urging everyone to play their part, a new campaign was launched in January by anti-corruption campaigners John Githongo and Gladwell Otieno, and law professor Yash Pal Ghai. ‘Kenya Yetu, Katiba Yetu, Maisha Yetu’ calls on Kenyans to seize the opportunity offered by the new Constitution that was voted for overwhelmingly last year, offering an opportunity to recreate Kenya as a country where tribalism is eradicated and accountability starts.
Referring to the murders of three alleged criminals by undercover police officers on Langata Road in January, the Daily Nation said in an editorial, “Those three victims do not depict just the unlawful actions of a few rogue policemen; they depict the rottenness of an entire force that has been overrun by criminal elements.”
The crumpled note slipped into the traffic cop’s hand and those bodies on Langata Road are connected. Stopping a trigger-happy, undercover cop might be beyond most people; stopping the daily bribe is not.
