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POSTED SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2015 | BY- KWAMCHETSI MAKOKHA
He has failed once, but he is not the type to give up easily.
Raila Odinga, the leader of the opposition Coalition for Reform and Democracy, must take full and personal responsibility for the state of corruption in Kenya.
Every day, a new revelation of scandal in government surfaces and Mr Odinga is never far off from its origin.
Ever since the President released 174 names of public officials implicated in corruption during his State of the Nation address on March 27, Mr Odinga has savaged the government every month claiming the 174 names were not enough.
Corruption fights back, as is evident in Mr Odinga’s insistence since April this year that the Devolution and Planning Cabinet secretary’s name be included in the list.
Were the names to be increased to 176, Mr Odinga would not be satisfied and would claim — as he has done in the past — that some names had been elided.
These unreasonable demands are made not so much to be met but to distract the President’s focus and sully his anti-corruption credentials.
The failure of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to meet the President’s deadline to conclude investigations in 90 days was the first victory against clean government.
Before that, opposition politicians implicated in the corruption list refused to step down from office unlike the five Cabinet secretaries on the list.
As it were, the opposition has extended the immunity granted to its implicated governors, senators and members of the National Assembly to some of the Cabinet secretaries facing charges in court.
INVESTORS APPREHENSIVE
Devolution CS Anne Waiguru has been turned into the scapegoat on whom the opposition would like to load all their problems.
After sneaking that phrase about corruption being a cancer into US President Barack Obama’s speech when he came visiting, Mr Odinga has appointed himself as Ms Waiguru’s tormentor — accusing her of presiding over financial malfeasance at the transformative National Youth Service as if there is no corruption in other government ministries.
It is a curious coincidence that the Auditor-General’s collection of rumours about failure to account for 98 per cent of the budget surfaced just after Mr Obama left.
The impact of this is that investors who were lining up to put their dollars in Kenya have held back, causing the value of the shilling to permanently cross the Sh100 border in trading against the dollar.
The third prong of the opposition attack has been to use the Controller of Budget to start a needless controversy about the Sh200 billion raised through Eurobond by talking nonsense about offshore accounts.
Attempts to use the National Assembly to besmirch Ms Waiguru’s character fell flat on the first attempt.
Subsequently, one MP previously caught on camera insulting police officers and now facing a court case — obviously an opposition lackey — is the one beating the drums for Ms Waiguru’s removal from office on frivolous grounds.
FEELING SELF-SATISFIED
When the country is screaming blue murder over the profligate spending of county governments on Sh7 million hospital gates, Sh7.3 million hospital curtains and Sh1.09 million wheelbarrows, he is lighting a lamp to look for a scandal in the purchase of beans, biro pens and other government essentials.
He has failed once, but he is not the type to give up easily.
In the midst of these unfounded allegations of graft, the opposition has been insisting that the government pays teachers higher salaries as part of their plan to collapse the economy and bring about regime change.
Opposition leaders – and especially Raila Odinga — must be feeling very self-satisfied after stealing President Kenyatta’s anti-corruption initiative, neutering it to undermine his credentials, and ultimately using it as a weapon against him.
