Lack of accountability threat to Kenya’s long-term growth
People demonstrate against the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission in Kisii town on May 16, 2016. PHOTO | BENSON MOMANYI
Accountability for Economic Growth and Development is the theme of this week’s 32nd Annual Seminar of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).
Almost 2,000 accountants are reportedly in attendance and reflecting on Kenya’s political, social and economic challenges and promises, or maybe just thinking about money.
This year’s theme is rather appropriate to our current democratic and developmental times. We are entering the noisy phase that typically precedes our general elections, with its attendant impacts not just on economic growth but social and political stability.
We are in the middle of a mighty brouhaha over the fate of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) (or is it the fate of the individual commissioners?)
This week’s aggressive police response to street protests turning into anti-social behaviour suggests a post-constitutional reform “on paper, not in practice”.
Indeed, given an unusual official mixture of arrogance (“we have plenty of tear gas”), denial (“that man didn’t die, so it’s all good”) and silence (“omerta” as the mafia would say), it appears we have not even begun to address the question of police accountability in Kenya.
Accountability, you ask? I have written about the Auditor-General’s reports in the past and the lack of action therein. To recap, the 2013/14 report seems stuck somewhere in Parliament.
The 2014/15 report, like Planet Neptune, is naked to the visible eye almost five months after it was legally due.
Recorded national spending misdemeanours (excluding the Eurobond) in the 2012/13 transition and 2013/14 totalled at least Sh200 billion.
County governments incurred pending bills of over Sh100 billion in their first year of existence. Philip Kinisu, Chair of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), estimated our annual loss of funds at Sh600 billion.
Meanwhile, both the Judiciary and IEBC strongly dispute the Parliamentary Accounts Committee’s findings and recommendations on special audits carried out in 2014.
Simply, we are just about to approve a monster Sh2.2 trillion 2016/17 national budget to continue our “growth and development” path when the last “signed off” audited accounts were for 2012/13.
Politically, this Jubilee administration intends to pass its final budget under its current term when we don’t have full answers on its first year (2013/14) spending.
In practice, the self-same IEBC that spent Sh2,000 per voter on the 2013 election (against the norm in established democracies of Sh100 to Sh300) now wants to spend between (Sh2,500) and (Sh3,000) per voter in 2017.
After the Sh4 billion it spent over its 2013 allocation. We surely have the only institution in the world whose fixed costs are variable along a geometric progression.
Again, accountability, you ask? Then there’s the private sector. What sanctions were meted out to those identified as responsible for corporate catastrophe at Kenya Airways and Uchumi?
Where is the accountability to shareholders? What of our recent banking upheavals? If shareholders were part of “the game”, then where should accountability begin and end?
If board members were “insiders” who was expected to provide management oversight? I am unconvinced that our ever-increasing reports of public sloth and private sleaze abide by the notion of “accountability for economic growth and development”.
Big crime isn’t punished
Let’s call this the “reverse broken windows” theory — because big crime isn’t punished, smaller crime becomes acceptable. Starting in government and “big” private sector and then spreading across all of society to the “little people”. So where do we go from here?
Once we understand that accountability is about individuals and organisations — public, private, non-state — being held responsible for executing their powers according to the standards we expect, then we begin to see what it should mean for Kenya.
This suggests that, first, we set standards to define the behaviour of the accountable individual or organisation, before establishing how we might assess performance against these standards.
The Constitution in its statement of values and principles gives us a good starting point. Second, accountability requires a credible assessment, or investigation, of whether standards have been met.
This is the sort of normative approach that is sadly missing from a Kenyan public and private discourse built around identity.
Without this assessment, it’s impossible for those accountable to be answerable. What processes do we use to get individuals and organisations to defend their actions, respond to queries or explain themselves?
But it is the final element of accountability that is most important — sanction. If, at the end of the day, there is no “stick” for falling below standards, or “carrot” for exceeding them, then the accountability process is simply “whitewash”.
Approved transactions
Imagine if we could apply these four accountability steps to the multi-million shilling gates and roped bridges, super-priced wheelbarrows or high-dollar Facebook accounts on which our counties have spent money (and likely ICPAK members who approved these transactions).
Yet, for all of this, accountability is not “self-standing”. On the demand-side (citizens, shareholders, stakeholders) it works best with transparency and participation.
On the supply-side (public, private, non-state institutions) it “hangs out” with capabilities and responsiveness.
Simply, incompetent, unresponsive institutions cannot be accountable. Equally, individuals on the demand-side have no ability or incentive to seek accountability if they face access and participation barriers.
Mostly, accountability cannot support economic growth and development if the “accountability ecosystem” isn’t working.
Taking a purely public sector perspective, our horizontal accountability (between state actors) demonstrates failure if PAC and the Auditor-General are singularly unable to hold the Executive to account.
Equally, our vertical accountability (between the people and the state) seems fragile. Elections are the primary form of vertical accountability — we vote in those who deliver, and vote out those who don’t.
If the election arbiter, in this case IEBC, itself lacks credibility, then what does this mean for Kenya?
Methinks Kenya is entering what the Chinese refer to as “interesting times”. The term “diagonal accountability” comes to mind — a notion where, on a day-to-day, rather than periodic basis like elections, individuals and non-state actors engage with the state directly.
Think “participatory democracy” for “social accountability”, or “shareholder activism” for private sector.
These might just be words, but they allow us to self-reflect if we understand that it is the lack of accountability, and not the lack of fine plans or implementation, that is the real danger to our sustained growth and development.
