How corruption rings run Kenya

“When you have the cow’s horns firmly in your hold, get as much milk from it as possible; you never know the next time such a chance presents itself” is a saying that has been doing rounds in Kenya since the 1970s.

Ever since, the mantra has been stuck to with religious diligence and whenever people ascend to power in Kenya, they make the most of the opportunity by plundering public resources. 

Sadly, not only are high-ranking leaders the key perpetrators, even those in the most lowly positions of responsibility are wasting no time to plunder.

Land Grabbing

Having a chunk of the earth in your name is a sign of achievement in Kenya. When British colonialists set foot in Kenya in the 1890s, they made it very clear that land was one of their chief pursuits. After their departure in 1963, the new African elite picked up from where the British left and perfected the craft.

The land holdings of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, have been the subject of much speculation. He is said to have appropriated huge tracts of land across the country,  from the lush highlands to the coast. And Uhuru Kenyatta, his son and current president, has on many occasions been challenged to defend the legality of the huge tracts of land the family owns.

However, the actual size of land the family owns is a well-kept secret. When the International Criminal Court at the Hague tried to investigate President Uhuru Kenyatta’s assets, Kenya’s Attorney General Githu Muigai, without batting an eyelid, in July 2014 told the ICC that Kenyatta in fact owned no land in Kenya. In short, the President is as landless as any other squatter in the country. He successfully got off the ICC hook.

Back in 1966, the elder Kenyatta reportedly awarded himself 509 acres and an additional 200 acres in Juja near Nairobi at just ksh 5,472 (roughly US$ 54.72),  meaning each acre cost him about ksh7.71. When the parcel of land was later disposed of in 2010, it was for a princely ksh1 billion (roughly US $10,000,000)

Photo: All Africa

Conservative estimates speculate that the Kenyattas control close to half a million acres of land in Kenya alone, a land mass often  equated to an entire province. Aside from the Kenyattas, Deputy President William Ruto is another senior government official implicated in land scams. One of his earliest exploits is a 2010 case, involving the sale of land to the Kenya Pipeline Corporation. He reportedly pocketed a cool ksh 96 million after selling off Ngong Forest land, which is government property, to KPC at ksh 272 million. He was suspended from the cabinet but later made a comeback after being acquitted for lack of evidence.

After the 2007/2008 post-election chaos, Ruto was accused of appropriating 100 acres of land belonging to Adrian Muteshi, a farmer who was displaced in the violence. In June 2013, Ruto was ordered by the courts to relinquish ownership of the land and pay damages to the victim. The matter was settled out of court.

This year, Ruto was again in the news over the grabbing of a playground meant for Lang’ata Primary School. Iconic pictures of school children tear-gassed by police while demonstrating grabbed headlines worldwide. The grabbed land was meant for expanding the Weston Hotel, which Ruto later admitted to owning. Interestingly, the hotel itself is built on land allegedly grabbed from the Kenya Airports Authority.

Land scams also featured during the procurement of land for cemetery expansion in Nairobi, sucking in then Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi. In 2009, Mudavadi was also the Local Government minister and together with his ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Sammy Kirui, signed the deal for the land even before the survey was done.

Photo: Aljazeera

The land was purchased at ksh 283 million, or US$2,679,045, in what turned out as a collusion to plunder public funds. In an area where land cost just ksh 200,000 (US$ 1,893) an acre, it was bought at ksh 2,000,000 (US$ 18,933). Mudavadi, his Permanent Secretary, and a number of lawyers pocketed the difference. The case is still dragging in court with none of the chief suspects, including the former Deputy PM, admitting liability.

Among ordinary folk, land scams are also a norm. Forgery of land titles and long running land disputes are common. After a 20-year stay in the US, Paul Gichuru decides it is time to develop his 24-acre piece of land along Thika Superhighway. It must have appreciated greatly in value, he is certain. He goes to inspect it, but there is a small problem. Maybe the long stay overseas has made him forget the directions. Before him stands large go-downs and a bunch of Asian ‘owners’ going about their business. They ask Gichuru what he is doing on their property.

A perturbed Gichuru fumbles for his property ownership documents back home, but only manages to retrieve photocopies. But these ‘owners’ have a ‘genuine’ title deed which they confidently brandish. But after a grueling battle involving  piles of paperwork at the Ministry of Lands, it was found out the title had been irregularly obtained. And officers in the ministry, fearing a furore, revoked the title held by the Asians and the matter is now before the courts.

Willie Owour is a land economist who for close to ten years has been helping clients who have either been conned or want to purchase land and are taking precautions. In a city where people sell road reserves, bypasses or sell a single plot to multiple clients, nothing can be left to chance. Owuor states that scammers in land deals are usually a bunch of sharp dudes with time on their hands and money on their minds.

“They hover around vacant and neglected pieces of land [and] then launch a search at the Ministry of Lands. This information is free to the public. They then take all particulars of the plot and establish the whereabouts of the owners. If they discover he is out of the country or too occupied to take notice, they head to River Road and craft a fake title deed. They are usually very aggressive salesmen and offer very nice deals that result in quick sales. After that they bolt,” says Owuor.

Photo: BBC

But Owour points out that, should land scammers find someone foiling their attempts, they never hesitate to move mountains to retaliate. The latest example of this are the recent killings of ten directors of the Kihiu Mwiri Land Buying Company in Murang’a area, just outside Nairobi. Sixteen other directors of the same company have been arraigned in court on murder charges and will appear in court again on 21, September, 2015.

“You can get shot. These guys always have a lot of money at stake. For example, one deal can be worth about Ksh 15 million or US$ 141,999, with the salesman making about Ksh 1.5 million (US$ 14,199.9) in commissions or ten percent of the sum total.”

On 31^st August 2013, Kenyatta ordered a ‘thorough audit’ of records at the Ministry of Lands to sift out irregular land allocations. He was reacting to claims of about a hundred influential people said to have allocated themselves over a million acres on the coast and waiting to sell off the land should prices go up. However, the Kenyatta family also controversially owns land on the coast. Does the president have the moral authority to stem illegal land deals when claims of wrong doing hang over his family and some members of his government?

Millionaire Police Chiefs and Jail Kingpins

In May 2014, after a government purge that started way back in 2011, the first batch of 12 senior police officers was fired. Some police officers, it has been claimed, are involved in criminality including extortion, soliciting of bribes, robberies and cover-ups. Not surprisingly, some have risen to become some of the wealthiest Kenyans with no genuine account of how they made their money.

The police vetting process meant to weed out rogue elements has, instead, provided  little more than humour, shock and entertainment. Police officers have frequently recounted concocted tales of how millions found their way into their bank accounts.

Photo: Cipe

Interestingly, most of the police bosses never cite genuine accounts of instances in which they solved crimes. Instead, they tell tales which do not add up on how they made millions out of rearing fictitious chickens, fish or through rental income.

A comical example is of Nandi area police boss, Joakim Mecha, who, on February 12 this year, told the vetting committee that he made most of his money through private consultancy as an engineer. His official pay slip indicates that, in 2011, he earned just ksh 26,000 (or US$ 241) a month, yet once transacted over ksh 440,000 a day via the mobile money transfer service M-pesa. 

On January 12 2012, he deposited ksh 50,000 (US$ 473) and then a further 150,000 (US$1,420). On just one day, April 29 2014, Mecha’s bank account had transactions totaling ksh 659,000 (US$ 6,238). He stated that the ksh 500,000 (or US$ 4,733) was a loan and that he sometimes purchased police office furniture through his personal accounts.

Eusabius Laibuta, an Administration Police Commandant, finding himself cornered by the vetting panel concerning the source of his wealth, pleaded with the vetting panel not to sack him as the move could condemn him to an early death.

“I personally appeal to you not to spell doom on us by taking away our jobs, because if you do so, you may find some of us on the obituary pages of newspapers. That would not be good enough for what we have done for the country”, MrLaibuta told the panel.

How and why the police chiefs would die if sacked he did not expound.   

Laibuta could not account for his other sources of income besides his salary. For instance, the ksh 3 million (US$ 28,399) annual income simply mentioned as ‘miscellaneous and rental payments’ remained a mystery not only to the panel, but to himself as well.

He also could not account for  the origin of huge deposits made to his account on November 30 2012. But he is neither alone nor is he the biggest fish in the market. Examples such as his point to a much larger chain of corruption that runs right from the top echelons of the country’s leadership to the ordinary citizenry.

For the police and law enforcement, the rot drops right into the jail system.

In September 2015, Kenya’s Commissioner of Prisons, Isaiah Osugo, announced than in the past three years, 150 prisons officers had been sacked for aiding inmates in the smuggling of mobile phones. These phones have been used to run extortion cartels utilising mobile money transfer services.

A case in point is the recent murder of Shem Kariuki, a prisoner in Kingo’ng’o Maximum Security Prison in Nyeri, who was serving 15 years in jail for rape. He was clobbered to death using a hammer by Peter Gachau, another inmate serving a life term, after the two disagreed on sharing an unspecified amount of money they had conned from other Kenyans through the use of a mobile money transfer service.

Photo: Families for Survivors

Law Enforcement

At the moment, Kenya lacks an effective anti-corruption body and, when it exists, the target is usually the small fish. The once dreaded Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission is a shell of its former self after it was systematically butchered through Parliament. 

In March 2015, MPs tabled a motion in parliament to disband the EACC Secretariat.This came just after the EACC presented a list of holders of public office it was investigating for corruption, most of whom were politicians, former politicians, or cronies of current leaders in government

In July, their wishes were granted when Parliament voted 70-39 in favour of sending EACC Chief Executive Halakhe Waqo and his deputy, Michael Mubea, home. The remaining commissioners were forced to resign under suspicious circumstances as more corruption cases sprung forth. This scuttled the investigations and prosecution EACC had hoped to conduct.

At the moment, the National Youth Service is mired in scandals and Devolution Minister, Anne Waiguru, is in the firing line over the loss of ksh 791 million (US$ 7,488,084). The youth service is under her ministerial docket and when the whistle was blown over the saga barely three months ago, State House came to her defense.

It was a shocker to watch her live on TV last week admitting that the ksh 791 million – the very money she denied two months ago had been lost – had indeed been stolen from the NYS. Suffice to say, nothing major will happen to her nor any senior officials with connections to the highest office in the land.

Instead the small fry, 22 junior to middle cadre managers, have been fingered in the scam. Interestingly, their access to the money, secured in the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMIS), is virtually impossible without collusion by top management. Who then will bear responsibility or face prosecution? Your answer is as good as mine.