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.

That is my kicker!

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EACC Corruption ARA

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