Ofeibea Quist-Arcton
1 January 2003
(Page 3 of 3)
Our entire programme at Transparency International Kenya is predicated on the fact that we have 24 months where the new regime will perceive its own legitimacy and credibility as being tied very much to its ability to be seen as anti-corruption. So, they are going to make lots of promises and we will be there reminding them - saying thank you very much for every promise, then holding them to it. It's our job.
So the sincerity of politicians . . . I say the anti-corruption spirit lasts for 24 months and that goes for Kenya, for Ghana, it's the same 24 months in the UK, where the prime minister Tony Blair came in saying that he wanted to remove Conservative (party) sleaze. After a few years, things start happening and people start to see some of the old sleaze coming back.
Politicians are politicians. The strength of civil societies and other institutions and key government institutions like parliament and the judiciary and that kind of thing are absolutely essential to maintaining this sincerity.
If we sit back and wait for a president and a group of politicians running Kenya to be sincere about the fight against corruption, we shall be disappointed!
How much pressure do you at Transparency International Kenya for your work, for your fight against corruption?
We get abuse all the time, privately and publicly. Maybe it's because of my journalistic background, but I believe it is better to be taken seriously than to be liked. So we are not liked by some people, but we do not feel under threat.
Abused by whom?
By politicians, by the supporters of politicians who will ring you up and say nasty things or send letters or emails to you. But I don't think there's anyone from this organisation who feels under physical threat. Those days are behind us. In the past ten years in Kenya, the space has opened up.
And now the great thing is that, even in the last days of the Moi government, senior officials in his government came to us for advice, many times, quietly. They didn't want to be seen to be doing it publicly, but it was positive. There is still a bit of nervousness and tension, but I think Kenya is a different country in that respect.
What advice?
Advice on anti-corruption measures that they were thinking of implementing, anti-corruption laws that the government was working on. I will give one good example, because it's public knowledge now. The attorney-general's office came to us and said listen, we are drafting an anti-corruption law, we have been instructed by the cabinet to do that. So, we rustled up some of our experts internationally who looked at this law and gave a commentary to the government.
They didn't take all our suggestions and comments on board, but I think that kind of relationship - of using the expertise of a global network such as Transparency International - is a very good thing. But we don't judge, we don't say that because such and such a government is near the bottom of the CPI (the Corruption Perception Index) we are not going to talk to them. We are saying is that the fight against corruption is for all Kenyans.
So will we see a cleaner and more transparent Kenya in the future?
I think we will definitely see a more transparent Kenya. The irony is that it might not initially be cleaner, because cleaning up takes time. What's going to happen is that corrupt networks and systems are going to be disrupted and disorientated. It's temporary.
The president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, is a former chairman of Transparency International's Advisory Council. Look at the kind of difficulties he's having dealing with corruption in his own country.
So, the corruption networks will try to reorganise themselves in the new year. It takes them about 18 months, during which time they buy lunch for so and so and their contracts can be sorted and then these relationships start to consolidate. But I think it will be more transparent, simply by the nature of the opening up of democratic space.
The new leader of Kenya won't have the myth of the 'Big Man' that Moi carried with him, that inspired a kind of fear and awe which was efficient at keeping secrets. That's gone. Moi's successor won't have that same myth around him. So, Kenya will be more transparent. Will it be cleaner is a different question.
It's one thing being more transparent, so the press will be reporting these horror stories every day - a bit like Zambia and Malawi in that respect - but I think that Kenya will be more transparent. We have a fairly strong civil society and very, very good media. The private sector is now getting more and more unhappy about corruption, so I think there is an opportunity for a cleaner government as well.
And I think there is a feeling that it is not really possible to have a government that is dirtier than the Moi government, in that it has been fairly special. Some of the scams and deals that have been perpetrated and are in all these reports are quite mind-boggling, in terms of the complications that people have had to subject their minds to, to cook them up.
But I would say that I'm optimistic. We have had ten years of multiparty democracy, very imperfect multiparty democracy. The economy has done badly in those years. Our economy has not recovered from the political competition of 1991.
It is a question for the whole of Africa. Who pays for democracy? We talk about democracy and multiparty politics. But who is paying for it? Who paid for all these candidates to drive around the whole country and to hire helicopters during the campaign? Who pays for this, who pays for democracy?
And I believe this is the same in all societies. These are where the big problems of conflict of interest and corruption in political systems start. And it starts in the United States, it starts right there. You have lobby groups and hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into the campaigns of different politicians. Even Tony Blair has had difficulties with it in the UK. Chancellor Helmut Kohl had problems with it in Germany.
How do we pay for democracy?
So these questions that we are asking ourselves here in Kenya and across the border in Tanzania, are important global questions now. We are not just talking about the looting of roads, we are now talking about things at a higher level.
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