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Rare chance for IMF to get officials to act on graft

Rare chance for IMF to get officials to act on graft
The International Monetary Fund (IMF). PHOTO/Print
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At the request of the Kenyan government, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be conducting an audit of anti-corruption and governance systems in Kenya.

The IMF undertakes such an audit for countries that request this. Of course, with Kenya’s infamous corruption profile, it was surprising that its government requested such an audit at all.

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi states that the diagnosis will be undertaken in every government ministry and all government institutions. All county governments will also be audited.

When functions and ministries flowed from the centre to counties after devolution, corruption was on board that train. County governments have become even more corrupt than the national government if that were possible!

The two key functions that need to be thoroughly audited are procurement and payments. This is where the entire rot in government resides. Procurement is almost always rigged to achieve the intended result. The tender evaluation committees are always a big joke! As for payments, everybody who supplies government knows – you will not get paid until you ‘grease palms’.

The work you did is completely irrelevant. In fact, the accountant goes out of the way to create hurdles for the supplier to ensure he or she comes to heel! It’s actually a marvel that there are businesses that are still supplying public institutions at the national and county levels.

The IMF audit is all so well. What the IMF needs to note is that the key problem in Kenya is the human factor. How do you instil a sense of accountability among public servants? How do you kill off the raw greed that has completely infused itself into the DNA of public servants? How do you stop governors, Cabinet secretaries, principal secretaries, board chairmen and chief executives of parastatals from registering proxy companies through which they siphon budgets under their control?

How do you trigger the completely ineffectual anti-corruption bodies like the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to act decisively against corrupt individuals? Corruption has become chronically endemic in Kenya, and the systems have been aligned perfectly to fit into this paradigm that facilitates it.

The IMF audit is a critical first step towards changing the corruption story in Kenya. This is the first time that corruption is being looked at by an institution that is completely independent, and has the resources to undertake an in-depth investigation.

This is an organisation that cannot be compromised in any way by government officials. Kenyans, therefore, can expect a different conversation to emerge from this audit. The investigation must go the whole hog, including flagging projects that have clear governance issues.

The IMF should not shy from pointing out culpability by institutions and individuals to facilitate the process of accountability. From this report, Kenyans should expect some senior government officials to resign.

Further, the audit must provide a programme of prescriptions to cure the shortcomings its investigations unravel. These prescriptions, others may call them conditionalities, should be tied to ongoing and future budgetary support for the government.

After all, the government invited the IMF to its home. It cannot then reject the resultant product. Further, the IMF must insist that the report be made public and launched with the same fanfare as the budget. It otherwise risks being branded as part of the government’s opaque governance when it comes to corruption.

The IMF is at its most influential in Kenya today. This is because the government is heavily reliant on it to help it navigate the current profound economic crises it finds itself embroiled in. To achieve its own mandates, and for the betterment of the people of Kenya, the IMF should use its leverage to get the government to do what it, and previous governments, should have done to tackle the scourge of corruption.

The IMF must not waste this opportunity.

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