Cost of corruption rises for donor-dependent Kenya

KACA was given a mandate to investigate allegations of corruption - which turned out to be no mean task.

KACA's first director, John Harun Mwau, was dismissed after less than a year, and found himself facing a judicial tribunal looking into his competence soon after.

Subsequent directors found working conditions just as hard, and each one claimed that Attorney General Amos Wako was blocking their attempts to prosecute well-connected suspects.

Mr. Wako denies those claims, arguing that he never stopped a sound case. "Prosecution is only as good as the investigation," he said last week, speaking at a seminar organized by Transparency International.

But last December, the high court declared the whole organization illegal, saying that certain powers bestowed on the authority conflicted with those of the attorney general.

It said the only way to re-create KACA was to amend the Constitution - which is what last month's bill attempted to do.

A broader question under debate here is how - and how quickly - to proceed with reforms. While few people would publicly dispute the need for reform, many Kenyans felt the bill last month was ill-conceived, and that a related bill with an amnesty provision would have let the worst offenders go unpunished.

According to opposition leader Mwai Kibaki, donor funding would do little for Kenya if the anticorruption agency were weak. He argued that there is no use passing a bill that does not create a proper infrastructure for fighting corruption, "because if aid were renewed under such circumstances, it would be misused anyway."

Members of the opposition also criticized the IMF's stance, pointing out that the improved KACA would have had no more power than the old one - and questionedwhy the international organization was backing it.

Samuel Itam, the IMF's senior representative in Nairobi, defended IMF position, saying that it was important to start somewhere. "We believe the reform process is important for Kenya, and a fundamental pillar of that is governance," he told reporters, adding that while perhaps not perfect, the bill would have been a "step in the right direction."

"I know that now the situation will be even worse, but I am ready for that - if only one fineday we will have a real fight against corruption and if on that dayit will be possible to punish the big corrupt people," states George Walunywa, who was against the bill. "Only then can this country be a fair country."

The bill, says local political commentator Peter Wanbali, was disingenuous, for Moi "has no inclination to start the difficult task of fighting corruption at this point in his career."

But one high-level Western diplomat says the bill's defeat has serious ramifications for the future. "If Moi does not have funds coming in from the IMF prior to elections [next year], he will take funds from elsewhere to finance the elections - further bankrupting the country."

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