Mr. Ababu Namwamba, the embattled chair of the national assembly’s Public Accounts Committee. (www.kenya-today.com)[/caption] The events of the last few weeks in Kenya have reminded of the story in the Scriptures where a woman who was being accused of adultery was brought before Jesus. The punishment for adultery was killing by stoning. In a rather curious way, Jesus told the crowd that whoever had not committed any sin should throw the first stone. After a few minutes, the woman’s accusers walked away. No one dared to do so because they were all guilty of one sin or another. The last week has seen alot of accusations and counter-accusations on the issue of corruption among members of parliament and elected officials. The most spectacular accusation was against Budalangi Member of Parliament, who is also Orange Democratic Party Secretary General, and the Chairman of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, Ababu Namwamba. This is not the first time that a member of parliament or a committee of parliament has been accused of corruption. Many are the times that there have been accusations that parliamentary committees have becoming vehicles for self-enrichment and rent-seeking. The national assembly decided to use one of its committees, the Powers and Privileges Committee to investigate the issue. The man at the centre of the accusations is of course Ababu himself, who unleashed a tape-recording of a Member of Parliament confessing that he had received a bribe to compromise his work in one of the committees of parliament. Aren’t Kenyans too naïve to expect much from this exercise, when some of the MPs in this same house have previously been accused of the same crimes that now face Ababu? With the kind of partisan politics that are at play in the current parliament (Jubilee versus CORD), why should we as Kenyans expect so much from this exercise? Are these MPs the same people that we expect to give a fair hearing to the issue at hand, when allegations have been raised against some of them previously? I dare say that none of these men / women has the moral authority to throw the first stone at Ababu, or even to sit in judgement over the issue at hand! Our parliament is so much tainted that they have given the name ‘honourable’ a new meaning. It is no longer honourable to belong to that house because of the things that are said to be happening there. If Jesus were alive today, he would definitely call that house a den of robbers! In the late 80s, former Editor-in-Chief of the Kenya Times newspaper Philip Ochieng’ was thrown out of his job for saying that MPs were lazy, corrupt and ne’er-do-wells! The KANU-controlled parliament could not stomach having such an editor in the KANU-owned newspaper! Looking back, I think that Philip Ochieng’ was prophesying about the current parliament. It is only the players who have changed but the habits and the mind-set remain the same. I am not condoning corruption. My contention is that those who purport to stand on judgement over others are so tainted that they cannot do that duty in an impartial manner. Even the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the institution that Kenyans expect to be their watchdog, is currently embroiled in unnecessary power struggles which no doubt make it vulnerable to manipulation. Who will deliver Kenyans from these savage animals in our parliament and in the public service, which devour everything that comes their way by virtue of their priviledged positions? It is time citizens thought of alternative ways of making their leaders accountable, since the institutions that are trusted with that responsibility have failed them and they will not be redeemed soon.
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