Reports that the majority of State agencies and corporations that award billions of shillings in tenders have yet to comply with a presidential directive to publish details of the same is as disappointing as it is unfortunate.
This is because on the one hand it portends a lack of preparedness or unwillingness to publish the required information, while on the other hand it intensifies the suspicion that this reluctance to disclosure is borne out of the fact that there is too much rot in there to be made public.
It was even more disappointing that State House – which issued the directive – has chosen to take a laid back position, almost expressing satisfaction with the lethargy by endorsing it as ‘good progress’.
When this directive was issued in June, millions of Kenyans, whose taxes have over the years been swindled, wasted and misdirected, had great expectation that at long last they would have a peek into the dark world of tendering.
While it is possible that the agencies were ill prepared to make the disclosures to the required level and working at it, there can be no ruling out the fact that some are hoping that the passage of time will shift attention to other matters, sparing them this discomfort of disclosure.
This must not be allowed to happen, especially at this time when the burden of taxation has increased and multi-billion shilling tenders are in the pipeline – necessitating high levels of accountability.
That Kenya has a big challenge with corruption and wastage of the scarce public resources is no secret. For just this week, corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) published a report showing that mega theft persists, especially in the award of tenders to international contractors. This cannot be left to go on if public trust in contracting is to be restored.
We insist that the Presidency takes a hard stance in demanding publication of the information as it ordered. This is because the executive’s twin actions of revamping the fight against corruption and increasing the level of disclosure are the greatest things that happened under the current administration – offering it a chance of leaving a legacy. It must not be left to die.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
