Things got worse after the rollout of the new country government system in 2010 – 47 counties were created as part of a devolution process. The county system transferred political power and resources to local levels, but there were weak monitoring and oversight systems, extensive patronage and loose citizen engagement.

There’s an urgent need for political will to address corruption and its root causes: the lack of the rule of law and political irresponsibility among both the leaders and citizens.

Kenya has made efforts to address corruption, but there is little political will to enforce these legal measures.

Since 2011, various laws and institutions have been created to support anti-corruption efforts. The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission was introduced, along with other oversight institutions.

In 2018, a milestone was achieved when Kenya created the National Ethics and Anti-Corruption Policy. It doesn’t have power of prosecution, but it performs well in asset recovery and investigations, yielding positive results.

Whistleblower legislation is in the pipeline. This will encourage the reporting of corruption, which continues to be risky for potential whistleblowers in the public sector. If the whistleblower bill is enacted into law, it will help safeguard people who play a crucial role in fighting corruption.

The phrase “the fish rots from the head” aptly describes Kenya’s anti-corruption dilemma. Kenya’s political elites engage in corrupt practices to increase their wealth and influence through elaborate, murky bureaucratic processes. This has led to “state capture,” where corruption has become ingrained in the public sector and is used to maintain political power and build wealth.

As a result, efforts to improve public accountability are often undermined and manipulated to serve the interests of the political elites, to the detriment of the public. This has allowed corrupt systems to take hold at all levels of authority.

Weak citizen oversight and extensive ethnic politics, too, have turned the public sector into a hotbed for corruption.

The consequence is a highly non-meritocratic system, ethnically based public service, and politicised, dysfunctional public sector.

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