Corruption an impediment to first world status, says EACC’s Oginde

EACC chair Bishop David Oginde in Mombasa on Tuesday / JOHN CHESOLI

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has cautioned that Kenya will not achieve first-world status unless integrity challenges in the public sector are addressed.

EACC chair Bishop David Oginde said public accountants must lead the fight against corruption and make firm decisions to stop the theft of public funds if the country is to progress.

He said if the cancer of corruption is uprooted, Kenya will achieve President William Ruto’s dream of making Kenya a first world country faster than anticipated.

“It has happened in other countries. It can happen in ours,” he said.

“Integrity is the foundation of the anti-corruption fight. When integrity is eroded, anti-corruption laws are useless. It doesn’t matter how many laws we put in place,” he said.

He spoke during the 42^nd annual seminar of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Mombasa, which ended on Friday.

Oginde said integrity is a matter of character, a decision one makes, and the people who facilitate corruption in our country are mostly accountants.

“If accountants were to practice integrity, EACC would be redundant because there would be no need. Accountants play a significant role in the practice of integrity and accountability in our nation,” Oginde said.

The over Sh1 trillion that vanishes through corruption in the country every year is facilitated by accountants who lack and do not practice integrity.

Oginde said this money, stolen from public coffers, is enough to build one Level 6 hospital in every county.

This means Kenyans across the country are denied quality healthcare because a few individuals have stolen their money in taxes.

The EACC chair said some children in Turkana, Kilifi and Marsabit counties are learning under trees, being denied quality education, because the monies meant to build them proper classrooms have been embezzled by a few individuals.

He noted that women in far flung areas would not needlessly lose unborn babies because of poor road networks because the roads would be adequately built if monies are not stolen from public coffers.

“In the EACC, every corruption case we have dealt with there is an accountant involved, whether small or big,” Oginde said.

He said ghost workers are created by the human resource professionals and paid by the accountants.

Oginde said no law, no matter how good, can bring about ethics and accountability if there is no integrity.

He said the anti-graft commission is part and parcel of ensuring that the government e-procurement system launched recently works.

“We believe it will be a great system in curbing corruption, particularly in the procurement sector, where 80 per cent of the cases we deal with come from,” the EACC chair said.

The human interface is where corruption takes place thus no system can be flawless if the human interface has no integrity.

The human factor in bringing impact to the nation is critical because even the legal professionals find legal loopholes through which the corrupt guys can escape.

“And that is where integrity comes in. Kenya’s ongoing battle in the anti-corruption fight is not a legal battle but a moral imperative,” he said.

This week, a chair of a commission alleged to have been demanding and receiving money from individuals, was arrested.

“By the way, where I sit, if I wanted tom make money, my friend, I sit in a good place. Because the kind of people we pursue are people whom have stolen billion and they are willing to give a portion of that,” Oginde said.

He said there are individuals have approached him out of their own choice with not small money.

“Is it because I don’t need money? Is it because I have money? No! It is because I have made a choice that this is not the way I operate. And it is the way you as an accountant should make a choice too,” he said.