As thieves fall out, wheels come off Kenya’s embedded corruption networks

Kenya’s corruption networks are in unprecedented flux under the coalition government.

It appears the dragon of corruption is so engorged by the feeding frenzy of the past couple of years that it has started to throw up.

So many deals by so many politically opposed players have finally given the beast indigestion.

Last week, public attention was riveted by the scandal involving the purchase of land for a cemetery in a place called Movoko in Athi River outside Nairobi.

Essentially, the government paid 10 times the market price of the land, with the excess fat shared out among a range of individuals in prominent positions.

As Deputy Prime Minister cum Minister of Local Government Musalia Mudavadi — whose Permanent Secretary Sammy Kirui was among a range of individuals suspended — strenuously denied involvement, the politically polarised atmosphere gave credence to suspicions that the fight against graft is being used to settle political scores and fight political battles.

It was perhaps not coincidental that President Kibaki’s newfound resolve to take action against corruption followed a visit by the head of the IMF to Kenya accompanied by the international music celebrity Bob Geldof.

The list of individuals sent packing compares in range only to those sent home during the Valentine’s Day massacre around the Free Primary Education and maize scandals as the Offices of the Prime Minister and the President competed for the moral high ground in the fight against corruption.

When thieves fall out, wise men profit.

The politicisation of the fight against corruption that victims of the latest purges are complaining about, could finally lead to the dismantling of the corruption networks that have been “fighting back” for a decade. It is worth remembering that in the 1990s, across Latin America, corruption scandals truncated a series of administrations.

In the big picture of corruption in Kenya, two important things have happened over the past three months:

First, with the regard to the maize and graves scandals and to an extent the FPE one too (which is yet to roll out in all its glory) the time line of grand corruption has changed.

While the scams were grimly titillating in their primitivity, the key thing was the speed of things — from the execution of the deals, to their exposure and thence to punitive action, no matter how cynical or externally derived. The time it takes for all these things to happen has shortened dramatically.

The graves saga would seem to have kicked off properly in 2007 and has reached where it has today in a breathtaking three years.

This is unprecedented in Kenyan history where the high and mighty are concerned. And it will have implications.