We can learn from Singapore in the fight against corruption

Singapore is currently ranked seventh least corrupt country out of 175 countries surveyed by Transparency International with a score of 84% (100% means zero corruption cases). Kenya, on the other hand, is ranked as 30th most corrupt country globally with a score of 25%.

Singapore hasn’t been a corruption free country since immemorial. According to this document by Koh Teck Hin, Singapore before independence was a den of corruption. “… corruption was prevalent. The Prevention of Corruption Ordinance was weak. Corruption was not a seizable offence and the powers of the anti-corruption bureau were inadequate. Public officers were poorly paid and the population was less educated, did not know their rights and often the way to get things done was through bribery”, he writes.

But since Singopre took over from the British in 1959, “corruption control has been top of the government agenda”. To root out corruption, the new government came up with a four pillar strategic framework in the fight against corruption, and the four pillars are:

• Effective Anti Corruption Acts (or laws)
• Effective Anti Corruption Agency
• Effective Adjudication (or punishment) and
• Efficient Government Administration.

To find out how each pillar has helped Singapore become one of the least corrupt countries in the world, just browse through the document linked to above. There are two things I would like to mention from the pillars though: 1. There is no technological mechanism for the prevention of corruption embedded in the four pillars and 2. The pillars are founded on a strong political will for effective and efficient implementation of each pillar.

There is no Political Will to fight corruption in Kenya

As Kenyans we once tasted what a strong political will to fight corruption can do to us. Just after President Kibaki won the presidency in December 2012, even before his inauguration a few days later, Kenyans all over decided to crack on any one who showed any corrupt tendency. Police and matatu drivers were beaten up and others arrested for giving and receiving bribes. The office of Obundsman that was set up just as NARC government took office, had its hotline numbers for reporting corruption constantly engaged.

After months of fighting the small fish, Kenyans realized that nothing was being done on the big fish – and that’s how everyone gave up the fight against corruption at the grass-root.

The experience in Kenya tells us that we really do not need to implement those grand technological systems such as IFMIS and Audit Vault that cost million to the billions of shillings, but a strong political will to implement the four strategic pillars as Singapore did, and in year or two corruption shall have reached zero tolerance levels once promised by Narc.

How to create that political will in our government is a subject for another article – but it is suffice to say that tribalism will be the greatest disease to fight while attempting to create that will.