Business Daily (Nairobi)
Ochieng Rapuro
5 November 2009
opinion
Just where should Kenyans report petty corruption and get immediate action?
A few days ago while on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway just a little past the Gilgil toll station, a platoon of mean- looking traffic policemen flagged me down.
Convinced that I had everything right, I stepped on the brakes and directed the car to the road shoulder as directed by a wave of the hand.
"One hundred and eight! Let me see your driving licence," one of the policemen shouted as he walked towards my car window.
I quickly obliged in the knowledge that it was in order.
But upon opening the relevant page, the policeman quickly lost interest in the document.
I had just renewed it three days earlier and for a period of two years!
"Sh3,000 cash bail for speeding or I call a towing car to take you to the police station," he said. "Do you have the money?"
I said no but pleaded that I had not been driving at the stated speed.
When he flagged me down, my eye was clearly on the speed gauge.
It was reading 97km/hr.
I had been cruising at a steady speed of 90km/hr but had upped the speed marginally on reaching that downhill section of the road.
"Give me the money or I call the towing car," the policeman repeated, ignoring my plea.
I firmly replied that I did not have the money with me but was ready to get to an ATM in Gilgil, less than five kilometres away, to get the money I needed to settle the cash bail.
"How much money do you have," he asked, adjusting his cap to cover his face.
I said I had Sh1,000 while touching my chest pocket to confirm whether the Sh1,000 note I had left there as I fuelled to leave Nairobi was intact.
"Bring the money," he murmured.
I produced the money and he returned my driving licence. But I stood unmoved.
"What are you waiting for?" he thundered .
"The receipt," I said.
"There is no receipt for Sh1,000. If you want a receipt, come with me across the road with the entire Sh3,000, " he said as he grabbed the driving licence from me once again, pointing to the other side of the road where a crowd of hapless motorists stood around the Nissan X-trail police car, pleading their cases with junior officers under the supervision of an inspector.
I crossed over with the policeman, my Sh1,000 note tucked inside the driving licence in his hand.
He handed the document over to his colleagues in the car and called one of them aside for what he said was a briefing.
I calmly stood by and confronted the policeman, demanding a receipt for my money.
I insisted that I was ready to go for more money to make it Sh3,000.
But in a daring move that left me speechless, the policeman put the driving licence in my hand and told me to go, having tucked the Sh1,000 note in his pocket.
I thought of shouting but I realised that a confrontation with the gang of robbers in uniform would definitely leave me in a weak position because they could deny everything that had transpired and put me in on a trumped up charge.
I crossed the road back to my car, pulled out my mobile phone and scrolled down the phonebook for relevant numbers to report the daylight robbery that I was sure had transpired the whole morning and was bound to go on till sunset.
I called two emergency police numbers in my phonebook to no avail. I called 999. No one picked the call.
I called the office in Nairobi looking for our crime reporters in the hope of getting from them a number I could call.
A colleague promised to send me a number, but after waiting for nearly 15 minutes, with nothing forthcoming and the policemen getting impatient at my refusal to move, I decided to drive to the provincial police headquarters in Nakuru to report the matter.
The policemen, all either wearing sweaters or reflective traffic police jackets had covered their force numbers, making it impossible for anyone to identify them.
That left the registration number of their car as the only evidence one could use to report them.
At the provincial police headquarters in Nakuru, I demanded to see the PPO or the PCIO, but none of them was in.
I waited for 30 minutes and the constables manning the station started demanding that I disclose the reason for wanting to see their bosses.
I declined. It was heading to five o'clock and realising this was Nakuru, not even having covered half of my journey to Kisumu, I threw in the towel and jumped back into my car, dismissing the Sh1,000 as a small price to pay for all the trouble.
But I decided to write about this matter five days after the incident, my conscience having refused to let go.
If I a journalist could be harassed and robbed of such amount of money by junior police officers, what about the millions of fellow citizens out there?
Who can they turn to in the event of such robbery?
How much money do these people collect by the roadside each day and what is the cost of it to ordinary citizens and to business?
These hoodlums appeared to take comfort in the fact that most motorists are pressed for time and money -- and are therefore easily cowed by the idea of leaving their car at a police station for an entire weekend waiting to be charged on Monday.
Having failed to stop the corrupt policemen on their tracks, I realised that the biggest challenge to the fight against petty corruption is the mere absence of a place to report it as it happens and the chances that even if it were reported, the likelihood of any action being taken is nil.
Could anyone please tell Kenyans where to report petty corruption and get immediate results?
Mr Rapuro is the Managing Editor, Business Daily
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