Exactly five months ago, President Kibaki officially received the Goldenberg Report from Mr. Justice Samuel Bosire of the the Court of Appeal. When receiving the report, the President promised Kenyans that he would carefully study it and ensure that “what it says shall be done,” to quote him verbatim.

Because of the President’s checkered record on fulfilling promises made, skeptics had good reason to doubt his determination to slay the corruption beast. Despite this skepticism, many Kenyans still believed that the President had the opportunity and ability to redeem his legacy.

One of the key recommendations in the report was for further investigations into the activities of very senior politicians and purported businessmen in Kenya. Presumably, the investigations were recommended because, we are told, not enough evidence had been presented before the Goldenberg Commission to warrant it to ask for the arrest and prosecution of the people involved.

Kenyans naively expected that some of the identified architects of this mammoth scandal would be speedily prosecuted and if found guilty, sentenced to long jail terms. Despite serial mishaps by the Government on the anti-corruption front and long lists of unfulfilled promises on every conceivable thing strewn everywhere, we desperately wanted to believe that some good could still come out of the Goldenberg Commission.

We eagerly waited for both the suggested investigations to be conducted and the prosecutions to unravel. One month went by. We dismissed that as too short. It was fair and reasonable to give the Government more time, we reasoned. Bureaucracy turns slowly, some of us said. It is not one individual’s fault, we told ourselves.

Then two, three and four months passed. We begun to feel concerned, even slightly irritated at the unknown staring back at us. Nothing happened.

It is now five long, dreary months, and we have no indication how much longer we will have to wait; or if anything will ever come out of the hundreds of millions of shillings we spent on that Commission. Our hopes have been completely dashed.

Meanwhile, as we anxiously waited for the Goldenberg corruption czars to be slaughtered, we have encountered other, possibly more massive rip-offs and scandals than the Goldenberg one. With the unearthing of unimaginable money laundering, tax evasion and other related economic crimes, Kenyans are no longer certain of how many other egregious economic crimes are occurring.

With a conservative estimate of Sh 3 billion clandestinely ferreted out of our national economy annually from Charterhouse Bank alone without a single red penny paid as duty, Kenya might have lost hundreds of billions of shillings in the past five years alone. And we are not yet talking about the circumstances surrounding the suspicious collapse of Uchumi Supermarkets; the allegations about money laundering and tax evasion claims at Nakumatt and its other affiliates. Considering the fact that we are here only scratching the surface of these gigantic mountains of scandals, it is possible that our economy might not ever recover from their impact. It is also quite logical to assume that had all these stolen funds been invested in the economy, our country would today be on the path to total and true economic independence.

By any standards, the loot stashed abroad by our economic saboteurs would be more than adequate to construct thousands of first class road networks around the country; clean, varnish and reconstruct all the urban and rural hovels like Mathare, Kibera, Korogocho, Kariobangi and many others into habitable modest quarters; provide clean piped water for all our needy citizens; revamp and equip our dilapidated public facilities and infrastructure like hospitals, dispensaries and schools; and launch an effective campaign against the HIV/Aids pandemic and malaria.

It is even possible for the left-over to be used for fighting floods, irrigating our arid alnd semi-arid areas and creating a national culture that can bring fundamental unity amongst our different peoples.

For a while, it looked like the political and economic filth exposed by John Githongo was the bleakest that we could ever become aware of. Kenyans were optimistic that with all those ugly skeletons exposed from the Government closet, we might have just turned a corner to accountability and prosperity. The high profile cabinet “resignations” or “step asides” were viewed as a welcome respite in an otherwise polluted environment. We breathed heavily but healthily. There was a flicker of light at the end of the corruption tunnel, so we thought.But we were clearly mistaken. Our exuberance was short-lived.

Along came the news of the final utter destruction of Uchumi Supermarkets. Then revelations of massive money laundering, tax evasions and other economic crimes emerged from the Charterhouse Bank, Nakumat Supermarket and other affiliated enterprises and individuals.

Combined with the Artur, Artur and Company performance, we have suddenly realised that we are dealing with a colossal problem hitherto unimagined. It is far reaching than a mere failure in leadership. The conundrum facing us is not something that can be wished away. Neither can we varnish it using our untutored and unreliable experiences and institutions. To rely on our corrupt institutions to deal with these massive frauds would be to partake in the commission of more frauds.

In order to fully unearth the fraudulent activities involved, we need to bring in competent and well trained independent international forensic accountants from reputable firms. There is also a need for the establishment (under special legislation) of an independent court, staffed by international experts in the areas of money laundering, tax evasion, organised crime, international banking and drug trafficking. Special prosecutors (preferably non-Kenyans) should then be appointed to deal exclusively with these crimes for a period of two to three years.

To address potential liability issues from KACC directors and other busy bodies, another special piece of legislation may need to be introduced expressly abolishing the KACC and immunising the Government from any lawsuits. This is a piece of cake. It has been done in other jurisdictions and Kenya is not an exception.

*The writer is a Barrister and Solicitor in Toronto, Canada

sopurce: http://www.timesnews.co.ke