A review of audit reports published by the colonial government between 1927 and 1963 reveals that no incidents of grand corruption were reported then.
There are myriad cases of fraudulent imprests, cash theft and currency counterfeiting but virtually no organised corruption.
One can argue that the colonial government was an illegitimate, unaccountable military dictatorship and its unwanted existence was, by itself, evidence of corruption. Or that this regime covered up its own corruption in the same way it did its war crimes.
This trend is however also visible in the post-independence reports.
The African-majority post-independence government also reported no corruption in its audit reports for two years — until the highly publicised Ngei maize scandal in 1965. It has been downhill since then.
There are two possible reasons for this. Corrupt public officers have had no interest in ending corruption as they have been the primary beneficiaries.
Or Kenyans have been unable to remove corrupt leadership due to the weakness of being over-awed by, and electing people who earn their living from talking rather than doing. People who come up with the cleverest slogan instead of the most effective course of action.
Whichever the reason, the problem has grown to such complexity that it cannot be solved within the current system. This is by no means unusual.
In management science, there exists a family of problems called “wicked problems”, which cannot be solved and all attempts at solving them fail and reveal new problems.
In Kenya, corruption has attained that status. There is no neat solution and we can only optimise outcomes by changing our approach.
One way to obtain optimal results in the corruption war is pursuing a doctrine of relentless disruption rather than the current one of investigation for prosecution purposes.
First, preventing the theft of public resources is more desirable than recovering the stolen assets.
Secondly, in a country with more crooks than a duck has quacks, there simply isn’t enough time or resources to investigate, prosecute and determine all those cases.
Also, disruption doesn’t usually get bogged down in procedural challenges as it happens in courts.
Disruption has the simple objective of proactively obstructing or dismantling the infrastructure of corruption to stop planned or ongoing crimes. This can be done in many ways.
A simple method called “monstering” is where an investigator obtains a surveillance warrant on a suspected criminal mastermind, but takes no steps to conceal the fact that the subject is under surveillance.
It is immediately clear to the subject and all of his accomplices that they have attracted attention and their current scam is abandoned. No prosecution was ever intended and loss is averted.
Complex methods include what is known as “forfeiture action in rem”. A prosecutor identifies property that is being used to commit a crime, such as a bank account, files a suit against the property itself for forfeiture without involving its purported owner or even filing charges against him.
The purported owner may go to court and prove his ownership, implicating himself in the predicate crime.
If he doesn’t, then the asset is recovered easily since it can’t defend itself as it is inanimate. This is useful in some money laundering and narcotics smuggling cases.
There is evidence that disruption works. Britain has pivoted it as a crime fighting doctrine.
A secret Disruption Manual was published by that country’s National Crime Agency in 2013.
The NCA has since reported thousands of disruptions every year in cases where investigation for prosecution was a non-starter strategy due to time pressures or resources required.
Kenya can borrow tactics from others, learn from their experience and customise it.
