Kenya's cops most crooked
2005-03-23 19:45
Nairobi - Despite a reduction in the number of corruption incidents reported by the public, Kenya's police are still the east African nation's worst graft offenders, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The country's police have topped world corruption watchdog Transparency International's sleaze chart for Kenya for the past several years and remain there even though authorities have begun to crack down on corrupt officers.
The annual report on petty corruption ranked 34 Kenyan agencies on their involvement in graft based on a survey of nearly 2 500 people nationwide about their dealings with government.
The survey noted a decline in the number of "bribery situations from 40% to 34% of encounters with officials, both public and private" but found the police force to be the least improved operation.
The group ranks agencies on the incidence, prevalence, severity, frequency, cost and size of bribes demanded by officials and the police scored 72.4 on the index, up from 57.8 in 2003, according to the survey.
It attributed the poor ranking to a vast increase in the amount of bribes being paid to police, from an average of about $8 to an average of about $148.
"The impact of reduction of petty bribes has been more than offset by an increase in big bribes," the report said.
The survey was released a day after Kenyan authorities faced off with TI over its charge that an unnamed government minister has stashed more than $10m of ill-gotten cash in foreign accounts.
Government spokesperson Alfred Mutua flatly denied the claims, but TI has stuck to its guns and refused to name the concerned minister.
"We have supplied the relevant authorities with the report and it is up to them to act on it," said Gladwell Otieno, the head of TI's local branch.
Amid the growing pressure, President Mwai Kibaki has renewed pledges to crack down on graft.
Donors estimate corruption may have cost Kenya up to a billion dollars since 2002, nearly a fifth of the country's 2004-05 official government spending of about $5.5bn.
The allegations of corruption are awkward for Kibaki's government, which came to power in December 2002 on a platform of ending systemic graft that characterised the regime of former president Daniel arap Moi, who ruled the east African nation for 24 years.