E-Clips:- Business Pictorial - Suspensions A Good Warning To The Rest

AFTER the sacking of 27 judges and a horde of magistrates earlier on, yesterdays suspension of four senior civil services, including two permanent secretaries, over graft allegations is another indication of governments courageous resolve to fight graft.

And it undoubtedly sends a very strong signal that, the government is serious with regard to, its ,zero-tolerance policy on corruption.

That is as it should be. In the past, the war against corruption has been hampered by lack of bureaucratic goodwill, especially senior officials in government who have been unwilling to give the new anti-graft solutions it so much requires to succeed.

For this reason, the country has continued to pay a heavy price both in terms of the of much needed public resources through corruption and the lack of donor confidence that has resulted in the country being denied financial support for over a decade.

Until yesterdays suspension of the four officials, among Them finance permanent secretary Joseph Mangari and His home affairs counterpart Sylvester Mwaliko, fear was fast creeping that despite the Narc government riding to power on the back of a pledge to rein in the cancer of graft in the country, it was not determined to go the whole hog in doing so.

Only a few months after ascending to power reports began emerging that senior government officials including ministers, were involved in corrupt dea1s.

And yet even in the face of what was considered credible evidence, no action had been taken against any of those officials.

It is for this reason that we highly welcome the step taken yesterday regarding the Shs 2.7 billion passport tender scandal.

As head of public service Francis Muthara confirmed while announcing the governments action, there have been serious concerns regarding both the award of the tender and its financing arrangement for the Immigration Security and Document Control Project which he said were irregular.

Eyebrows were raised when it emerged that an initial tender of Shs 800 million was expanded to tone of Shs 2.7 billion and the new tender awarded to a French company on a single sourcing arrangement without being put to the normal tendering process.

It further emerged that none of the three firms that had bid and were short listed in the original tender, all reputable international companies, was invited to bid for the larger project after the qualification was cancelled.

The suspension of the four, who have been adversely mentioned in relation to the scam, was, therefore, important as it now paves the way for thorough investigations into the scandal so that the course of justice can commence if there is prima facie evidence of wrong doing.

As we have stated before, the move was also instrumental in that it served to re-instate the credibility of the government and especially in the regard to the fight against corruption, which had received a lot of battering following the revelation of the latest scandal.

If the war against corruption is to be won, there will be need for the government, and more so President Mwai Kibaki, to ensure that it does not lose momentum even if it means cracking the whip on persons who are close to him.

If there is credible evidence implicating government ministers or even State House officials in corrupt deals, we do not see any reason why the president or other relevant agencies would hesitate to take appropriate action.

But even more importantly, there is need to further strengthen the corruption –fighting structures to ensure that they are able to effectively and professionally fight the vice even within official circles.

So far, for instance, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission has not done much in terms of exposing corruption and appears to pursue only those cases that are in public domain.

It took Ntonyiri MP Maoka Maore, for instance, for the scandal to be brought to the attention of the public and persistent campaign from various quarters for the government to launch investigations and take appropriate action.

Such conduct speaks volumes about how prepared we are in undertaking a full-scale anti-corruption war.

The good thing, however, is that the government is alive to this fact as epitomized by the ambitious five-year plan that is has embarked on.

As Appellate Judge Aaron Ringera noted while handing over the report o graft in the judiciary to Chief Justice Evan Gicheru, the cancer that is corruption is like a dragon and thus the need for brave measures to effectively contain it.