NAIROBI, Kenya — Fed up with their East African nation perennially being branded as one of the most corrupt places in the world, Kenyans and their new government are engaged in one of the biggest housecleanings in modern African history.
Since taking power nearly two months ago, newly elected President Mwai Kibaki has fired top officials long suspected of looting state funds, launched an anti-graft investigation against the country's top judge and even appointed Kenya's independent anti-corruption watchdog as the government's anti-graft czar.
In addition, Kenyans are fighting back against corruption -- sometimes literally. Many Kenyans have started refusing to pay bribes for jobs, medical care and basic government services. And in scenes replayed across the country, commuters have assaulted traffic officers demanding bribes from operators of matatus, or minivan taxis, who for decades have routinely coughed up money to greedy police.
"Kenyans feel they are helping the government achieve its avowed mission of ridding the country of corruption," said Gichira Kibara, who heads the Center for Democracy and Governance, a think tank in Nairobi, the capital. "Ordinary people feel that they have to do the job themselves [because] the police and judiciary, which would be expected to lead the battle against corruption, are themselves so corrupt."
This week, Kibaki granted Kenyans' call for an inquiry into the "Goldenberg Affair," a scandal in which the administration of former President Daniel Arap Moi funneled an estimated $600 million to individuals with ties to government ministers for exporting nonexistent gold and diamonds. Many economists believe that the 1991 payments to a Kenyan-owned company called Goldenberg International caused the economy to spiral into decline, throwing millions of people out of work.
Kibaki's administration already has heeded widespread calls to reclaim land and money from some of Moi's cronies. And by launching several investigations into high-profile scandals, Kibaki is satisfying voters who two months ago swept Kenya's ruling party out of power for the first time in 40 years. Critics say Kibaki's anti-corruption drive is just about money. The new president needs to show international donors that he is serious about fighting corruption to have a chance at freeing up hundreds of millions of dollars that the International Monetary Fund withheld from Moi's regime. IMF officials feared that large chunks of the money would end up in foreign bank accounts of top government officials. The new government has had what it called promising talks with the IMF, but no decision on the loans has been announced.
