CAG Charles Kichere speaking to reporters in Dodoma on April 12, 2022
Ayi Kwei Armah’s novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, like many other
novels narrating and critiquing the journey post-colonial Africa had taken, captured the euphoria of independence and the dashed dreams and hopes that it brought in less than a decade.The sense of decay, rot set in soon after political independence had been achieved, as the new class of rulers found themselves pressed with more urgent matters than attending to their new nations.
The main character in the novel, simply titled as ‘The Man’, led a difficult; some would say a miserable life because of his stubbornness and refusing to cut corners in life. Those who were in charge of the country were busy looting it, from the politicians in charge to civil servants.
His approach to all that was happening around him was a passive one. To him, he thought that people would laugh with hate at the bringer of unwanted light if what they knew they needed was the dark. He is bitterly pessimistic about the prospects of a better tomorrow.
This aptly describes the mood to some around the country.
These past few months have been dominated with headlines and news of prices soaring with some global crises being blamed. In the midst of such terrible economic news, came the headlines from the report of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) pointing to never ending bonanza with public money for some in the civil service.
Some of the headlines summed up the mood for many, by simply stating that it is more of the same depressingly familiar news with the CAG report.
The latest CAG report points to a mind boggling sum of more than Sh5 trillion being lost through these never plugged holes in the government.
Such news after bitter debates on the country’s borrowing habits and its growing debt.
One of the cases in the latest CAG report, reveal that, six individuals allegedly pocketed a truly dizzying sum of almost four billion shillings.
Then, from time to time, there is news of individuals fighting long legal battles for suspected economic crimes sabotage.
There is also news, now and then, of individuals who end up behind bars with lengthy jail terms for being convicted of stealing a chicken; or walking away with a piece of the railway, this, it is said, as a warning and a lesson to the rest.
A popular cartoonist depicted a civil servant being warned that the CAG was approaching, but the reply was of an individual too familiar with the ways in which he operates. The civil servant, with a cavalier attitude to taxpayers’ money, has an equally cavalier reply, saying they are ‘used’ to the CAG.
There are those who think the answer is in a multiparty parliament. Others see the answer in legal actions being taken against those implicated in these reports. Some argue that the answer is in reforming the CAG’s office itself as they have doubts about the integrity of some of its officials.
And yet others would say, law enforcing agencies should be given more authority to vigorously go after these allegations and those behind them. There are also calls for a new constitution as an answer to these continued failures in the civil service.
It is a fact that some of these issues are a product of the current constitutional and legal circumstances. Some government agencies dealing with transparency issues are in the president’s office. This is clearly a mistake but it is unlikely that it is an accidental one.
There is continued poor or inadequate coordination of law enforcing agencies regarding these frustrating revelations of public coffers being systematically looted by few individuals but the damage they do is so severe. Each agency dealing with law enforcement rarely moves without receiving orders to do so from the powers that be.
Curiously, in the latest report some of the incidents are from some years back. Can these lead to a conviction in a court of law when so much time has passed? Generally, the CAG’s reports point to the past, something that would require a robust response to prevent even more time passing and with it those alleged to have stolen slipping away from the law.
There is an urgent need for reforms, which unless met, with the current reality, when you encounter someone laughing with anger or pain you can be forgiven for thinking they have lost their marbles.
One of the Holy Books tells its readers to find the truth because it shall set them free. In a broken system, this truth through the CAG’s report is akin to fire fighters arriving at a scene where only ashes remain.
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