Monday, November 18, 2013
While it is commendable that the Ministry of Defence (MoD)
has come out to dispute its designation as the most corrupt public
institution in the recently released Ethics and Anti-Corruption
Commission (EACC) corruption survey, regrettably, its defence does not
pass muster.It is not enough for MoD spokesman Bogita
Ongeri to argue that the Defence ministry’s officers are directly
involved in corruption.
Arguments that cartels outside the ministry were responsible
for the widespread corruption are, at best, mere sophistry because the
methods he describes have long been the signature of drug kingpins
around the world.
This could very well explain the recent
case of fraud in the recruitment of soldiers involving a city engineer
who paid Sh400,000 to individuals to admit two of his children to
military school. The individuals demanding the money are reported to
have turned out to be conmen.
The truth may, however,
turn out to be more complicated than the events may appear at first
sight. A closer examination may reveal that there would have been no
conmen had some real MoD officers not been involved in the despicable
vice. No cases have ever, for example, been reported of people faking
Sh300 or Sh400 notes because real ones do not exist.
In the same vein, an institution or firm whose personnel do not demand bribes before hiring new people cannot attract conmen.
This
means the top echelons of DoD have their work cut out for them if they
want to banish their tarnished image locally and internationally.
When a United Nations body accused DoD troops in Somalia of replacing the Al-Shabaab as charcoal dealers in Kismaiyo, many Kenyans shrugged their shoulders and gave the soldiers the benefit of doubt.
But
considering the EACC survey was carried out last year, long before the
Westgate tragedy that soon descended into a farce, it is not hard to
predict what the 2013 results will show. There is work to do DoD. Accept
it and get to work.