Why rot pervades our institutions

Corporate governance in most of our institutions--public and private is wanting.

Corporate scandals are no longer news in our media.

Nothing illustrates this better than the Kacc report regarding the buying of cemetery land by the City Council of Nairobi.

The land which was valued at Sh24 million was sold for nearly Sh300 million. This is the hallmark of greediness.

The last time I checked, people respected the dead.

Today, it is rare for a week to elapse without the media highlighting a scandal involving gigantic amounts of cash –tax payers’ sweat.

What happened to our psyche; our morals and integrity?

Why do our oversight bodies react only after the crimes have been committed?

The best solution is, obviously, arresting the crime before the tax-payers incur losses.

This rot is partly a product of incoherent corporate governance and weak risk management structures.

As a society, we need a thorough ideological self-analysis.

Contrary to some insinuations and innuendos, corporate scandals are domiciled in Africa.

The only difference, between us and the West, is how perpetrators of these heinous acts are handled.

I will illustrate this by a real story of former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.

The US government alleged Skilling and Enron founder Kenneth Lay hid company losses and hyped the stock’s value while selling their own shares for private gain.