KAIKAI KICKER: EACC and Asset Recovery Agency giving hope to the fight against corruption
On my kicker, I am brimming with rare hope. The fight against
corruption in Kenya is often and for good reasons seen as an exercise in
futility. Most Kenyans including those in leadership throw their hands up in
the air in resignation when it comes to corruption. They say corruption fights
back. They say the agencies tasked with the job are not upto it and they also
conclude that generally those who are supposed to fight corruption long
succumbed to the vice themselves.
But I am hopeful because the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission
(EACC) and related agencies like the Asset Recovery Agency (ARA) are slowly but
surely cracking the code by striking where it hurts most. The agency has lately
been rather aggressively pursuing the recovery of unexplained wealth and
corruptly acquired assets. In the latest strike, the EACC is seeking forfeiture
of assets worth over Ksh.637 million belonging to a former official in the
county government of Machakos. The agency says the official accumulated wealth
in hundreds of millions yet his legitimate income was Ksh.16 million. The
commission has obtained orders freezing accounts holding Ksh.11.5 million as
well as some vehicles believed to be proceeds of crime.
Before that, the EACC targeted officials in the Isiolo County
government believed to have obtained over Ksh.58 million shillings through a
grossly inflated procurement of a fire engine.
Then there was a cleaning supervisor in the correctional services
department who made over Ksh.257 million through fake tenders for goods never
delivered. Then there was a former KRA official whose suspect assets worth Ksh.278
million got frozen; and then a junior finance officer in the Ministry of Environment
whose account containing over Ksh.22 million got frozen too.
The list is getting impressively long. And I say, it is sufficient
reason to raise our hopes that the fight against corruption especially because
through asset recovery, Kenyans are starting to get a glimpse into the real
extent of the stealing.
Through the asset recovery efforts, the pattern of corruption is
also becoming clearer. The pattern suggests a top-down conspiracy to defraud
government and steal from the public. Court cases against corruption cases have
mostly been painstakingly slow and sometimes end with light sentences or even
no consequences at all.
This is why the asset recovery route is the way to go even as the
wheels of justice grind on in the courts. Forfeiture of assets is provided for
under the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Act, 2003. The law provides that
a public officer in possession of property whose value is disproportional to
their known legitimate sources of income shall be presumed to have acquired the
property through corrupt conduct.
Where EACC reasonably suspects that a person is in possession of
unexplained assets, it issues a statutory notice requiring the person to
explain how they acquired the wealth in question. Where the suspect is unable
to explain or gives unsatisfactory explanation, EACC files a civil suit and
upon demonstrating to the court, that the assets in question are unexplained,
the burden of proof shifts to the suspect to convince the court that the assets
were not acquired through corrupt conduct. Where the suspect is unable to
satisfy the court, they are ordered to forfeit the unexplained assets to the
state.
To the EACC, and the Asset Recovery Agency, go ye flat out. In
asset recovery lies the real weapon against corrupt public officials.
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