Corruption can seriously retard economic growth

Parents demonstrate at Nairobi Road Primary School in Nakuru in March over alleged land grabbing. Sustainable economic growth and corruption cannot live side by side. PHOTO | FILE 

By GEORGE WACHIRA

In Summary

• Graft kills business and investor confidence while diminishing the national brand.

Sustainable economic growth and corruption cannot co-exist. With entrenched corruption, there is a mismatch between economic inputs and outputs with the latter being lower.

Corruption diverts public resources through unaccounted for financial leakages. Even worse, corruption kills business and investor confidence while diminishing the national brand value.

A Treasury Permanent Secretary in a previous government once estimated that corruption consumes about 25 per cent of the national budget.

Last month a visiting Foreign Secretary from the UK remarked that corruption is a “tax” on the economy. Corruption can in deed bankrupt a nation as it did in Kenya in 1980/90s when the country was literally put on a caretaker status by the Breton Wood institutions.

It is appropriate and timely that the executive has recently acknowledged that corruption is a major national problem needing full scale attention. This must be very welcome news to the business, investors and all hard-working Kenyans.

It should however be appreciated that corruption has over decades penetrated virtually every area and level of Kenyan public service. This was recently compounded by the ascendancy into corruption by many elected officials at national and county levels.

These are the leaders who should be partnering with the executive to fight corruption. Winning war on corruption will not be a walkover.

It requires winning of the hearts and minds of all Kenyans and demonstrated resolve and results. Hard working Kenyans abhors corruption because in it they see theft of their hard earned resources.

The unemployed and the poor lose hope when they see millions of shillings going into already full pockets, instead of being used to create jobs.

But what is most worrying is the Kenyan culture of idolizing the moneyed persons irrespective of sources of their wealth. Kenyans tend to vote for persons most endowed with loads of cash.

This way we easily and knowingly put corrupt persons into elective positions where they sanitise their wealth while furthering more corruption.

Yes it is possible to fully marshal the citizens against corruption, but only if they are assured that it is a serious and sincere effort.

For a few months after President Kibaki got into office in 2003, the public in general was enthusiastic, united and determined to eradicate corruption under the slogan of zero tolerance for corruption.

However this euphoria collapsed within months when a good number of “hungry” former opposition politicians took office and immediately commenced accumulating illicit wealth.

As a result, the government lost moral high ground, and the war on corruption was immediately and irretrievably lost.