EACC puts Governors on notice over graft

  

PHOTO | BILLY MUTAI Governors interact with Transition Authority boss Kinuthia wa Mwangi (seated right) and CIC chairman Charles Nyachae (seated right) during a press conference at the Great Rift Valley Lodge in Naivasha on April 2, 2013.   NATION MEDIA GROUP

By JOHN NJAGI jnjagi@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Monday, April 15  2013 at  13:02

 

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission has expressed concern at the potential of high corruption at the county level, saying lack of strong accountability systems makes the devolution system susceptible.

EACC Vice chairperson Ms Irene Keino urged elected leaders and state officers at the county level to ensure that accountability and transparency laws are complied with to seal loopholes used to embezzle public funds.

At the same time, the commission said it would be increasing its presence at the county level, setting up new offices in Nakuru, Isiolo and Makueni.

This will bring to eight the number of regional offices where Kenyans report corruption cases.

“The commission hereby puts on notice all state officers that it shall zealously combat and prevent corruption in public service,” said the EACC boss in a statement.

Governors, senators, women representatives and county ward representatives are supposed to provide oversight to ensure billions of shillings devolved to the county governments is put to good use.

However, concerns have been raised on whether the elected leaders at the devolved level could offer proper oversight to each other considering most come from the same party or coalition of parties and may collude to engage in shadowy deals.

During the March 4 elections, Kenyans voted on the strength of regions, with the two leading coalitions Jubilee and Coalition for reforms and democracy (Cord) bagging virtually all the seats in their strongholds.

On Monday, the EACC urged the central government to ensure governors and other elected leaders conduct their affairs in a transparent manner by ensuring strong structures and governance systems were put in place.

The anti-graft body called for greater scrutiny of procurement systems, observance of provisions on leadership and integrity and rolling out of civic education to empower residents to provide oversight on use of devolved funds.

Ms Keino said the commission would set up more regional offices once vetting of its staff is complete to provide oversight in some of the 47 counties established by the constitution.

Currently the commission has offices in Eldoret, Kisumu, Nyeri, Garissa and Mombasa where the public can report corruption incidents.

Each county will get between Sh3 billion and Sh11 billion depending on the size of the population, among other indices used by the commission for revenue allocation to distribute funds.