The editor of this site has started the serialization of fraud at the National Oil Corporation of Kenya.
As of today, a video that we shared on this site indicated that Kenyans have lost more than Ksh 6 Trillion taxpayers monies to fraudsters alleging to be leaders and heads of parastatals.
State parastatals have become cash-cows for a few individuals building flats, malls and buying the latest cars as the taxpayers sleep on an empty stomach.
Kenya is a wealthy nation but a few parasites have decided to evade with everything as we stare at a crisis of our own making. Graduates are suffering because there are no jobs, this is the cost of corruption, dear Kenyans.
Before giving you an overview of our National Oil Series. let me talk about corruption.
For corruption to exist 2 things must be present:
1) A Government: Corruption, like a virus cannot exist outside a host. If all the laws in the land were suspended today corruption would cease to exist. There is no such thing as corruption in a free market. Any corruption that takes place in the private sector is motivated by a desire to skirt some form of regulation. In a free market, you can’t bribe someone to buy your product. Governments are necessary evils. We need them, yes but to keep them honest, we must limit their size and scope.
2) Human greed. Greed is a universal human endeavour — It is not specific to Jubilee or Kenya or Nigeria. You cannot do away with greed any more than you can do away with anger or fear or lust. Human greed is not exclusive to learned or unlearned. Your average PhD professor has the same propensity for greed as a form 4 graduate. No more no less.
So since both requirements for corruption (governments and human greed) are common to almost all nations, why is it we do not find corruption ravaging all countries in equal measure? Because it has to do with the size of the Governments, not the people who run them. The bigger more convoluted the structure, the more corruption you get. Corruption is like evaporation. The greater the surface area the greater the evaporation. The more ministries or parastatals you have, the bigger the budget, the more departments you have, the greater the financial evaporation.
It’s impossible to create a new law without increasing the demand for corruption. Say for example you create a law that states anyone who murders somebody goes to jail. This is a good and necessary law. But by creating it you automatically create an opportunity for a guilty suspect to bribe their way out of trouble and you also create an opportunity for a greedy policeman to extort the innocent suspect.
This is not to say that laws are bad, they are not. But they do have an economic side effect which can lead to chaos if not mitigated. Laws and regulations are necessary but must be kept to an absolute minimum if they are to produce net positive results.
As Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize-winning Economist pointed out, countries that have managed to control corruption have only managed to do so by rolling back regulation. The UK, once the most corrupt nation on earth, is a classic case in point:
The basic function of a state is to maintain law and order. Not to buy laptops for our kids as great as that may be or build stadiums as President Uhuru Kenyatta lied to Kenyan youth that he would do. Neither is it their role to tell its citizens whom they should marry. Why should the government regulate marriages when churches have been doing a far better job for centuries? Don’t we only create a need for ministerial departments and seminars, and trip and salaries and endless tenders of waste and gluttony?
Our Government does not need Ksh2 trillion to do that. Kenyans should always be looking at a political party that will reduce government spending not increase it. The only way to reduce spending is to cut the functions and therefore the size of the Government. Why do we need a ministry of sports, or gender or education or housing, or industry? These are simply avenues for corruption. The functions can be adequately overseen by the private sector, many of who do massive work in other countries including building roads, railways, etc. Why should we have Uhuru promising to build stadiums? Have you ever heard Obama or Cameron building stadiums in their countries? That’s the work of the private sectors; clubs, corporates, federations, etc. Why should we have corrupt parastatals like National Oil Corporation of Kenya where almost 99% of the money is stolen????
The greatest accumulation of wealth and well-being the world has ever known was created in only 100 years in the US almost entirely by the private sector. This is the only model that works, private enterprise based on individual effort and freedom guaranteed and protected by State. The only role of the state is to protect these freedoms.
Kenyans need to think about critically about how many laws we actually need and how many ministries we need. If there was no youth ministry where could NYS scandal have come from? Even if today NASA takes over power within the same structure of Government, corruption will continue to thrive because we will just be switching thieves. There is no way you can leave your wife or daughter at your friend’s house, go on a long business trip and expect to come back and find her untouched.
Similarly, there is no way you can give Anne Waiguru or ODM’s Millie Odhiambo the password to the IFMIS program that controls Government procurement and expects them not to steal. It’s impossible.
As we look at the NOCK fraud, Kenyans must start thinking deeply about how these parastatals have become avenues for a few individuals to loot and enrich themselves.
The series targets relevant authorities, who are expected to act on the exposes.
Part one loading…
