What it is
An IPG report on President Uhuru Kenyatta’s anti-corruption drive and how, in IPG’s view, it became politicised and then trapped by weak, compromised institutions. These are the report’s arguments on a contested political topic.

Main argument
Kenyatta declared war on corruption in his New Year’s Eve address at the end of 2014, after paying about Ksh1.4 billion to firms linked to the Anglo-Leasing scam before Kenya could float its May 2014 Eurobond. The report says he took some of the boldest anti-corruption measures yet. He cleaned up his own office, ordered fresh Anglo-Leasing investigations and tabled a list of 175 suspected officials from both government and opposition. However, IPG argues the agencies meant to fight corruption are in crisis. It says “cartels” have penetrated them, and the opposition, parts of the media and civil society have turned the issue into a political weapon ahead of the 2017 election, shifting it from evidence-driven justice to “witch-hunting.”

The report’s key claims

• Politicisation: It borrows a scholarly definition: a rise in polarisation about judicial investigations, pushed into political debate by parties, leaders and media.
• Institutions compromised: It says the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC), the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Judiciary and Parliament have been affected. It points to Parliament disbanding its Public Accounts Committee in April 2015 after bribery investigations.
• Opposition strategy: It argues that the opposition and corruption suspects have allied against the government, and that opposition figures shield their own members.
• Business cartels: It describes networks of businesspeople and former officials who block reform.
• A case study: The National Youth Service scandal is used to show how a corruption case becomes political.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Kenyatta’s New War on Corruption (In the Dragon’s Den, Slaying the Dragon, The List of Shame)
3. The Dragon Strikes Back (the opposition strategy, corrupt business cartels, the NYS case)
4. Impact of Politicization on Anti-Corruption Institutions (EACC, DPP, Judiciary, a compromised lawmaker)
5. Conclusions

Recommendations

1. Restore the integrity of anti-corruption institutions and break up the cartels.
2. Create a specialised Anti-Corruption Unit with investigative and prosecutorial powers, preferably within the DPP’s office.
3. Reform the EACC along the lines of the national human rights and gender commissions, to give it research and advocacy capacity.
4. Parliament’s Justice and Legal Affairs Committee should investigate allegations that cartels have subverted these institutions.
5. The Chief Justice should speed up the new Anti-Corruption Inspectorate Unit in the Judiciary.
6. The opposition should support prosecution of its own members’ cases and treat corruption as a moral and criminal issue, not a political one.
7. Civil society should base its advocacy on evidence and the judicial process, and cover all actors: government, the private sector, the opposition and international corporations.