Editorials

EDITORIAL: Jersey showed Kenya how corruption should be fought

GICH

Mr Samuel Gichuru, former Kenya Power managing director. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Kenya is once again being taught a lesson in what the real fight against corruption looks like following an offer by a foreign government to repatriate millions of shillings that government officials stole and kept in foreign accounts.

Jersey Island, a British Crown dependency, is the latest to strike a deal with the Kenyan government for the return of more than Sh350 million that former Kenya Power managing director Samuel Gichuru corruptly accumulated through a web of offshore companies.

The deal comes after months of hard bargaining between the two governments over the terms of the impending repatriation that is now understood to have been resolved.

It is the second time in as many years that a foreign government is returning to Kenya millions of public funds stolen by powerful and self-serving officials using public office for self-enrichment.

The UK government made a similar move last year – returning more than Sh50 million that the country had lost to corruption through inflation of ballot paper printing tenders won by a British firm Smith & Ousman.

What is, however, uniquely puzzling and immensely disappointing is the fact that Kenya – the very nation whose citizens have immensely suffered in the hands of thieving public officers – has shown no degree of shame or even discomfort in the fact that foreign governments have pursued and seized the proceeds of corruption while the very lords of pilferage involved continue walking free on our streets. Take the latest case of the Jersey loot for instance.

The millions of shillings being repatriated were seized from a company Mr Gichuru formed in the tax haven island to receive kickbacks from winners of power contracts while he served as managing director of Kenya Power.

In Jersey as it were in the United Kingdom, the wheels of justice moved so fast that within a couple of years, the courts had obtained conviction against the Gichuru company and seized the assets.

Yet back here in Nairobi, Mr Gichuru and his compatriot in the crime, former Energy minister Chris Okemo, are still placing every obstacle on the path to their extradition to Jersey where they are wanted to face corruption charges.

Unlike their counterparts out there, the Kenyan agencies do not seem to be concerned by the pace of movement that has yet to convict a single prominent person for these serious crimes years after the information was made public.

That is not all. Kenyan authorities have not felt any shame in the statement of failure to protect the public interest that these repatriations represent, but have been enthusiastic in receiving them – to the extent of even fighting to determine use of such funds. Nothing could be more callous.