Kenya may not be the most corrupt society, but it certainly ranks very high as one of the self-declared democracies in which leaders exhibit an extraordinary disregard for the values of right and wrong.

Even more profound is that they know they are being hypocritical and leading a double life, but so what? Kenyans are gullible, accepting and corruptible.

This week’s amazing histrionics from some leaders is a powerful example.

We have seen Cabinet ministers William ole Ntimama (National Heritage), William Ruto (Agriculture), Sally Kosgei (Higher Education), Najib Balala (Tourism) and Uhuru Kenyatta (Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Trade) angrily condemn a report that implicates them in the planning of the mayhem that followed the disputed election results in December 2007.

Buret MP Franklin Bett has also registered his indignation and demanded that his name be expunged from the report and a full apology issued.

The report: On the Brink of the Precipice: A Human Rights Account of Kenya’s Post-2007 Election Violence, was prepared by the Government human rights watchdog, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

It is one among several written by varied organisations on that cataclysmic event, but it is unique for actually naming senior leaders that it accuses of direct involvement in planning the chaos.

I have considerable respect for some of these leaders, a few of whom have contributed remarkably to the struggle to advance freedom and democracy in Kenya.

But the vitriol they are pouring on the report betrays a little more than mere umbrage at baseless allegations by one uppity organisation that lacks credibility and prestige.

First, the KNCHR is a very serious entity that has courageously investigated and reported on issues of public probity without fear.

It is also populated by people who, individually and collectively, combine knowledge, prestige and personal integrity that cannot be dismissed simply because its report has upset some people.

Merely by being a product of the KNCHR, the report should be read with sobriety. Second, and equally important, are the facts around the violence.

It is a moot point that the mayhem was not spontaneous, that there was a deliberate plan that the aggressors were following before those targeted retaliated.

This is quite clear in the reports and evidence that has been adduced before the various committees investigating the violence.

It is equally moot that the violence was planned and executed along ethnic lines. That is how, for example, the Kisii and Kikuyu found themselves to be victims in virtually all these areas.

Ethnic politics and loyalties ultimately gravitate around a tribal leader and nowhere is this phenomenon dramatised more graphically than in Kenya.

The political socialisation fostered first by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and refined by retired President Moi, arraigned communities around ethnic chiefs who acted as direct links to the centre. These are the structures that were used to deadly effect during the violence.

Rather than rant at the report and stir the same ethnic passions the leaders are trying to distance themselves from, they should do what assistant minister Danson Mungatana suggests: Step aside like former Finance minister Amos Kimunya did and invite an independent probe into the allegations.

It is regrettable but hardly surprising that Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda must now proceed with the East African regional integration project without Tanzania because it is scared about the implications of progressing with plans to set up a common market by 2010 and a political federation by 2015.

Tanzania’s unease was evident from early 2007 when results from the referendum conducted on the pace at which the integration should be conducted returned a verdict that its citizens saw no need for haste because their national systems and institutions were not quite ready to embrace East Africa as completely as the integration envisaged.

This is hardly surprising. The theory and experience of regional integration provides ample evidence that subordinating national interests to a supranational authority is not an easy feat even for countries that otherwise have plenty else in common.

The EU integration that started more than 30 years ago is still very much a work in progress. Had the initial signatories of the European Union waited until all eligible members were ready, they would still be waiting.

A decision from the rest of the Eastern African countries to proceed without Tanzania will not, therefore, be seen as a betrayal of the EA spirit. Tanzania should be free to make decisions that it feels are in its best interest just as the other countries are free to do.

For them, however, those interests are best served by creating an entity whose sum total is bigger than its individual units – economically, politically and socially.

Tanzania does not advance a compelling case why it is getting cold feet so late into the process.

Its fears became apparent when the Wako Commission on the fast-tracking of the integration process proposed a formula that would see the political process rolled out parallel to the economic one.

Tanzanian leaders argue that its people are not ready for the envisaged integration because its political and economic structures cannot manage the demands of integration – which call for elimination of all trade barriers, allowing free movement of goods and services, and finally having a political federation.

Informally, Tanzanians will confess their main problem is Kenya’s stronger economy and the aggressive streak of its entrepreneurs. It is very concerned that Kenyan professionals will have an unfair advantage over Tanzanians.

This week, Tanzania’s East African Co-operation minister Diodorus Kamala told a meeting of private sector representatives in Arusha that his country would insist that non-citizens be barred from acquiring land.

Although he was quick to reassure his surprised audience that land for business purposes would still be available, the caveat he desires exposes a deep-seated and largely misplaced fear that citizens from one country – supposedly Kenya – will migrate en masse and inhabit Tanzania’s vast virgin land.

These reasons must be taken for what they are – belated excuses to delay a process whose potential benefits have been fully demonstrated.

It is tempting to agree with those arguing that Tanzania is suffering serious indecision over its status as a member of both the East African Cooperation project and SADCC.

It wants to enjoy the advantage for having feet in both camps for as long as possible before it finally opts for one – probably SADCC – after wasting its neighbours’ valuable time.

It must have been very clear for Tanzania that regional integration comes with a cost, and none larger than the cost of surrendering some autonomy and opening up its doors to allow the infusion of resources and competition from its neighbours.

It should also know that Kenya's industrialists are not going to close shop and wait for their neighbours to raise their production sophistication levels before they can compete.

Tanzania should have devised a strategy that enables its industrialists to benefit from partnering with others who will set up shop there. It should be using this time to expose its professionals to skills and work attitudes that raise their competitiveness – just as Uganda and Rwanda are doing.

He appears to have no inclination to rattle any more snakes, which is hardly surprising as corruption is not going anywhere.

Mr Githongo was not the first legally appointed operative to seriously track corruption. That credit perhaps belongs, with deep irony, to Mr John Harun Mwau, who ran the precursor to the Kenya Anti-Corruption Authority.

Like Mr Mwau, Mr Githongo’s efforts aborted and he fled before punishing anyone for corruption. He claimed his life was in danger and that his boss no longer appeared to be enthusiastic about tackling the cancer he had sworn to take on.

As could be expected, conspiracy theories abound that try to discredit Mr Githongo. However, corruption is a high-stakes game and an occasional death is seen as a legitimate price that may have to be paid.

What is not in doubt is that his boss then did not exhibit any great desire to affirm his zero-tolerance pledge, the farcical Operation Dragon in the Judiciary notwithstanding. On this, he was just being consistent with his predecessors who found great comfort in accommodating corruption.

If Kenya’s top leadership had wanted to tackle corruption, there was always ample information.

The Comptroller and Auditor-General’s reports were annual narratives of extreme sloth and venality (with the offices responsible identified) that were treated as routine lamentations, eliciting no action whatsoever from those mandated to act.

Reports of parliamentary watchdogs – the Public Investments Committee and the Public Accounts Committee – that have almost always found public officials culpable in the stealing of public funds or illegally exercising public authority for personal gain have been filed away in the archives rather than being treated as desperate public pleas for action.

We recall the spectacular Dick Berg scandal that hugely tainted the preparations for the 1987 All Africa Games and the complicity of our top sports administrator then who is now back as a senior player in the coalition Cabinet.

Recall the Turkwell Dam scandal and the ministers involved? What of the politicisation and corruption of the financial sector in the early 1990s through vehicles such as YK 92, and institutions like Trust Bank?

Shenanigans around land as a prime corruption tool are well-recorded in documents like the Ndung’u Report. That report lists a who is who in corruption related to land, and it is almost a carbon copy of who is who in the past and present political set-up.

And then, of course, was the father of them all – Goldenberg, before the new monster surfaced in the form of Anglo Leasing.

This history precedes Mr Githongo and will survive him into the indefinite future. My view is that as Kenyans, we are both unwilling and incapable of fighting this scourge.

Unwilling because corruption is extremely adept at self-perpetuating and sustaining, incapable because of the incredible resource inequities that define Kenya’s social relationships and elevate whoever has into a cult hero, and whoever has not into a veritable beggar.

Administrative responses like the KACC, the National Anti-Corruption Campaign, the Efficiency Monitoring Unit and legal instruments like the Public Officers Ethics Bill, serve as no more than embroidery trinkets that add up to very little when the sub-structure on which they rest is corruption-riddled.

The good judge, His Lordship Aaron Ringera, can talk of numbers of files opened, investigated and sent or resent to the Attorney-General and wax lyrical about how fearless and committed KACC is.

But KACC is one of the most expensive and ineffective Government indulgences.
Ultimately, fighting graft demands firm political action, not only legal responses, and herein lies the dilemma: Hardly anyone among those who should strike a telling blow on corruption can, in the words of Jesus, cast the first stone.

The rest, including the media, can only make the noise of the frog – completely useless as a deterrent to the cow drinking in the corruption well.

This is hardly surprising as Mr Raila Odinga, Kenya’s prime minister for four months now, remains the most compelling politician in the country.

Taking up a role without a clear purpose and deliverables, he has written his own job description and is using it to very good effect, both for himself and for country.

Here is a leader who has the country’s priorities right, and the courage to attempt to resolve thorny ones with the risk of upsetting entrenched interests.

There is one danger though – he needs to carry the rest of the team with him.

There is as much applause as there is cynicism about the eventual success of his approach if the rest of the team is not in the game.

Since the coalition government started work, the highlights of its existence has been former Finance minister Amos Kimunya’s very public slide into ignominy, Immigration minister Otieno Kajwang’ and his peculiar handling of the work permits issue – he almost went Kimunya’s way but will live to issue more permits – and Education minister Sam Ongeri’s less than wholesome handling of the fiery unrest in schools.

Worth mention also is the Deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi’s attempt to clean up the mess left by his counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta at the Local Government ministry where the latter, in a bout of unusual political generosity, nominated more councillors than the law allows him to.

One notes also that Prof Anyang’ Nyong’o at the Health ministry and Mrs Charity Ngilu at Water have been busy appointing parastatal chiefs in ways many see as high-handed and hence unacceptable.

Nairobi Metropolitan minister Mutula Kilonzo has been taking futuristic flights into the city of 2021, while many would rather he remained grounded in the present, talking about more pedestrian lanes, bypasses and bicycle lanes for all residents rather than for the extra comfort of politicians!

We highlight these because they represent what the public sees the ministers doing.

Ministers, unlike permanent secretaries, are judged by what they say and what they are seen to be doing.

They are political heads of Government departments and a lot of their time must be taken up with articulating these policies in ways understandable to the public, supervising the execution of public projects, and consulting with the public and other stakeholders.

I see three reasons why they are failing. One is sheer incompetence. There are ministers who do not deserve the responsibility. An example of one ministry that seems to have been seriously short-changed is Transport.

The second reason is that there are just too many portfolios, some not clearly defined, that even the public sometimes forgets there are 40 ministers!

Culture and National Heritage? No wonder Mr William ole Ntimama is generally absent.

Ministry of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands? A budget of less than Sh10 billion does not make it a terribly crucial docket, does it?

The third reason is that many of the ministers are waiting for cues from their party principals before they can move, creating a vacuum Mr Odinga is filling.

The experience of Mr Kimunya and the near-disaster involving Mr Kajwang’ has fostered significant hesitancy among the ministers. Many are uncertain whether the moves they make will draw applause or opprobrium.