The new guidelines will require firms to have a written code mapping out corruption risks and ways to combat graft.
Firms will be expected to hire a senior executive to drive their anti-corruption agenda, including enforcement actions and back the manager with a budget.
The companies must show proof of internal channels established to report graft and state of confidentiality in reporting and handling unethical practices.
Chief executive officers face Sh1 million fine or 10 years in jail if they fail to set up internal code of conduct for battling bribery and corruption as the State extends the fight against graft to the private sector.
The new guidelines will require firms to have a written code mapping out corruption risks and ways to combat graft.
Firms will be expected to hire a senior executive to drive their anti-corruption agenda, including enforcement actions and back the manager with a budget, an additional cost burden to corporates.
The companies must show proof of internal channels established to report graft and state of confidentiality in reporting and handling unethical practices.
Top executives will be required to report cases of bribery or corruption to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) within 24 hours.
The commission reckons that 70 percent of all corruption in the country relates to procurement, especially in government ministries and departments, where greedy officials and unscrupulous businessmen collude to rip off the public.
Now, the State is shifting focus to the private sector in the two-pronged approach that targets both the bribe givers and receivers within the business community.
Top executives will now join State and public officers in the list of persons required to fight and report graft, a crime that has seen the country lose billions of shillings every year.
“A private entity commits an offence when it fails to establish bribery and corruption prevention procedures,” says guidelines published Friday by the Attorney General Kariuki Kihara. “An entity or its directors, senior officer or other responsible person shall be liable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding one million shillings or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years, or to both,” he adds.
Top executives will have the responsibility of protecting whistleblowers within their companies or setting up channels for allowing leaks of corrupt dealings.
“Any person who demotes, admonishes, dismisses from employment, transfers to unfavourable working areas or otherwise harasses and intimidates a whistle-blower, informant or witness will commit an offence,” says the guidelines.
The guidelines follow an anti-bribery law of 2016 that was drafted by the private sector.
The war against bribery comes amid an ethics code signed between the government and private companies, which demands that firms and officials violating the code be blacklisted for at least five years.
Kenya has been roiled by a spate of scandals involving bogus tenders and suppliers that allegedly resulted in the theft of hundreds of millions of shillings by State officials from several government bodies.
Dozens of officials and business people have been charged over graft at agencies like the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF), Kenya Power, Kenya Pipeline Company and the National Youth Service (NYS).
Bribery and corruption-linked fraud has overtaken procurement-related vice to become the fastest growing form of economic crime in corporate Kenya, according to a recent survey by consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The report, based on feedback from 102 senior managers and board members, suggests that four in every 10 business leaders, or 42 percent of respondents, had experienced a corruption or bribery incident in the two years to 2019.
Companies and investors cite pervasive graft as one of the biggest challenges to doing business in Kenya.
Individuals who fail to report cases of bribery to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) now risk a fine of Sh5 million or a 10-year jail terms if MPs approve a proposed law that seeks to tighten the noose on graft lords.
The State wants all Kenyans and not just public servants to report bribery to the anti-graft agency within 24 hours under a proposed anti-corruption legislation that is before Parliament.
Section 14 of the Bribery Act is set to be amended to allow “any person” — and not just those holding a position of responsibility — to report any suspected case of bribery to the EACC.
Previously, only State and public officers — and those holding positions of responsibility within private firms — were lawfully required to make such reports to the anti-graft commission.
Those in breach face a lengthy jail term and multi-million shilling fine in the latest attempt to curb theft of taxpayers’ billions.
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