The broader vision of
transparency laws like Access to Information Act is intimately bound up
with shedding light into the dark labyrinths of government information
bureaucracy.
Early last year, I requested the National
Social Security Fund (NSSF) and the National Hospital Insurance Fund
(NHIF) for their audited financial statements and previous AGM minutes
through the Ombudsman invoking the access to information provision.
NSSF
was responsive enough to provide them but there was a complete deaf
response from NHIF till today. I repeatedly wrote to the Ombudsman
asking if there was a response from NHIF and they were also silent.
The
question pertaining to why the Ombudsman never got back was answered
last week when NHIF CEO and finance director were arrested and charged
with conspiring to defeat justice by denying criminal investigators
access to desired documents.
If detectives who were
enforcing a court order can be denied access to public information how
will an ordinary citizen access them?
This is the huge
gap in our transparency reforms cause. Kenya has adopted laws that make
government more visible in its procedural norms but unfortunately the
laws are not making government responsive to scrutiny. The symbiotic
link between open government and an active government is actually
attenuated.
Now, this credibility gap has risen from
the fact that the fight against corruption and transparency reforms have
actually been looked at as an end it itself when ideally the end should
be to restore faith of the public in governmental agencies and enable
such agencies to function in a more equitable fashion.
Kenya’s
public sector is pervasively corrupt and the fear and mistrust
characterising this public view has seriously weakened its
effectiveness. Most recent is the presidential directive mandating all
public servants to undergo a lifestyle audit in a fundamental effort to
rein in corrupt public officials.
The process has been shrouded with a lot of opaqueness on the
parameters of the vetting process and with no public involvement to
enhance quality and legitimacy of the outcome.
For
example, in mid this year, this newspaper was able to out a public
servant earning a gross salary of between Sh133,940 and Sh161,800 but
living a multimillionaire’s lifestyle of opulence. We are yet to hear or
see any remedial action taken against him.
Now, if the
end-game was to build public confidence, swift action would have been
taken so as to strengthen anti-corruption enforcement precipitating more
exposures by the public coming to light which would not only have help
“disinfect” institutions but also bring about effective, responsive and
administrative accountability.
So, as the new CEO of
the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission prepares to take office, the
most fundamental goal for the commission in delivering their mandate
should be centred on securing public confidence in government.
This
is because when public officials and institutions become subject to
more policies of formal openness and accountability, they tend to
perceive the demands for transparency as a threat to the functioning and
legitimacy of those institutions.
There is also the
need for Kenya to establish checked-and-balanced ethical measures that
will enhance service delivery, accountability and increase confidence in
the public-sector system.
First, information on
declared assets filed by public officers should be fully open for public
access and at the same time regularly updated like on a year-to-year
basis. This will give the public the right of information to scrutinise
public officers and also lead to more accurate assets declaration
information.
Second, I remain a strong proponent that
public officers owe undivided loyalty to government and decisions,
advice and recommendations they make should only be in public interest.
Therefore, the law should be amended to demand that all commercial
activities by public officers be placed under a blind trust.
Blind
trust management is simply transferring assets to an independent
company so that public officials can’t influence public decisions to
favour their commercial activities.
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