Context
The Kenyan state loses four billion US dollars to corruption every year – anywhere from 25 to 30 percent of the total state budget. This situation is clearly affecting both the foreign and domestic investment climate, as highlighted recently by the non-governmental organisation Transparency International. There is also a growing discrepancy between the steady rate of economic growth and the sinking average incomes in the country. Here, too, the inequality of access to public services, driven by corruption, is one of the main root causes of the problem. Marginalised segments of the population in particular are excluded from services, which exacerbates the potential for conflict. There is a growing risk that Kenya's current decentralisation process, and the associated partial transfer of power and resources to local administrative authorities, will also lead to the decentralisation of corruption.
Kenya's development in recent decades has shown that, if public administrations at the national and decentralised levels are corrupt, they will not implement the sectoral and financial provisions of governmental planning. There is a general lack of effective control and supervisory mechanisms both within and outside public administrative bodies. Even when abuse is uncovered, authorities fail to pursue administrative and criminal sanctions, which does little to deter others. Administrations lack the incentive to implement change because Kenya's citizens do not complain strongly enough about their corruption-induced poor performance or failure to perform, and the state lets them go unpunished.
Objective
State actors are combating corruption and misuse of power among Kenya's public officials more effectively. This enables the state to improve the services it provides and accomplish overarching development goals such as reducing poverty, promoting economic growth and fostering social cohesion.
Approach
The governance project for combating corruption and misuse of power supports the entire chain of stakeholders, from prevention to applying sanctions. The German contribution covers the following five fields of activity:
1. Strengthening the mechanisms for preventing corruption
2. Developing capacities to help uncover and pursue cases of corruption and misuse of power
3. Improving the conditions for taking extra-judicial remedial action to tackle corruption and misuse of power
4. Strengthening capacities in the field of criminal prosecution and passing sentences in corruption cases
5. Improving coordination among anti-corruption initiatives.
The important stakeholders are the independent supervisory bodies such as the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the public procurement supervisory authority, the ombudsman (Commission on Administrative Justice) and the Kenya National Audit Office, as well as the relevant actors in the criminal justice chain and civil society.
Results achieved so far
To date, no comprehensive impact studies have been conducted to assess the ongoing reforms in Kenya, as it is still too early to measure the results of the programme components, which were launched just a short time ago. However, the following examples of the success achieved by predecessor programmes can be used as a basis for further progress:
• Budget preparation and management. Thanks to German technical support in introducing a programme-based budget and an integrated financial management information system, budget preparation and management are more transparent and measurable, and thus more accessible for parliamentary and public controls.
• Transparency in accounting and performance orientation in public administration. Strengthening the Parliamentary Budget Office and the Kenya National Auditor Office has increased the pressure on the government to be properly accountable, and put greater focus on performance in public administration.
• Capacity development to help uncover corruption and criminally prosecute the perpetrators, and improve coordination. The number of corruption cases being investigated and pursued criminally in Kenya has risen since 2009 from an annual average of 61 to over double that number, reaching 236 in 2012. This is due in particular to German support for strengthening the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the courts in general, as well as to support for improving coordination between the various actors involved.
• Strengthening governmental and non-governmental supervisory structures. Strengthening governmental and non-governmental supervisory structures has enabled these offices to uncover and correct cases of misuse of public power. Some noteworthy examples include illegally closing school buildings, discrimination against internally displaced persons, failure to compensate victims of state terror (Wagalla), and subsidy fraud in the agricultural sector.