Here is a link to a good, but depressing article today in The Times regarding corruption in Kenya today - Entitled 'It's called 'eating'. But bribery is devouring the heart of Kenya' by Michela Wrong:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5754802.ece
(thanks mum in law for the tip off!)
Lets hope she is being overly pessimistic in order to sell books and that her prophecies of doom for Kenya do not come to fruition. Sigh.
Her book 'It's our turn to eat. The story of a Kenyan Whistleblower' is being published through extracts in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper.
Today Agriculture Minister William Ruto publically wriggled out of having any involvement in or responsibility for the maize scandal. The 'motion to censure' him was only supported by 22 mps, so has not been passed. I find this depressing. In addition, Parliament has been given two more months (til May) to work on the possibility of holding a local tribunal, or find a third option other than The Hague, to try those named in the Waki Report as guilty of inciting post election violence.
The diary of a British expat living in Kenya. News, views, debate and a healthy dose of trivia.
The problem can simply be traced down to poverty.
ReplyDeleteIt serves the interests of the politician to keep a substantial number of voters in penury and poverty.
They then look to the politicians as the guarantors of their food, clothing and even beer.
The politicians pander to this, buying beer and roasting meat during campaigns.
Our citizens fall for this and the one politician who can bribe the most, be it with food, money or beer, ends up getting into office.
Once there, the means they used to get power stay with them. Their instinct then says they should gorge themselves before they are kicked out. Corruption is the result.
The development of this continent is long overdue. Long overdue. Only that will ensure that the citizens are prosperous enough not to have sell their children's futures down the river for a mug or bottle of beer and a hunk of meat.