CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

Official Moguls 173
officials and their private-sector allies, included the looting of the
National Social Security Fund, both in the early 1990s and again
(to the tune of 256 million Kenya Shillings, or about $3.2 million) at
the end of the Moi era in 2002. Smuggling involving officials was
widespread; imported food was a particularly hot commodity given the
high duties that applied until mid-decade. Once in the country
contraband was sold at market prices, converting unpaid duties into
large profits while depriving the government of much-needed revenues
(Human Rights Watch, 2002: 7–8; East African Standard Online, 2003b,
2003d).
Elections were one-party affairs until 1992, and featured patronage and
electoral abuses throughout the Moi years. A pervasive patronage system
fed by misappropriated state assets and international aid reinforced tribal
divisions, turning exploited groups against each other rather than against
KANU. Money, jobs, land, and other rewards were given to supporters
and systematically withheld from others, giving Moi a personally loyal
and economically dependent political base. Moi’s own tribe, the
Kalenjin, were widely seen as major beneficiaries of political spoils, as
were the Maasai and the Luo; their youths were mobilized to attack
members of ‘‘opposition’’ tribes such as the Kikuyu, the Luhya, and the
Kamba. Moi agents intimidated voters, stole ballots and election records,
and seized non-KANU voters’ identification cards. Such abuses were
part of a broader link between corruption and human rights violations;
they also helped maintain the dependency and poverty that made
patronage effective to begin with (Ross, 1992: 430–431; Human Rights
Watch, 2002).
Judicial corruption was extensive as well, with judges deciding cases
along tribe-and-party lines, at times on demand from the President
himself. The judiciary was severely compromised for most of the postindependence
period, with expatriate British jurists often tolerating some
of the most egregious violations of due process and human rights. Judges
protected corrupt figures and helped preserve the culture of official
impunity; many solicited bribes and participated in corrupt schemes
with other officials and business figures. In the Fall of 2003 President
Kibaki suspended twenty-three judges and appointed two high-level
investigative tribunals; charges against up to eighty others were under
consideration. Court of Appeal Judge Richard Otieno Kwach, one of the
most prominent jurists implicated in the 2003 cases, had chaired a
Judicial Reforms Committee a decade earlier that provided some of the
first authoritative evidence on judicial corruption during one-party rule
(Ross, 1992; Human Rights Watch, 2002: 7, 13–14; East African
Standard Online 2003b, 2003c, 2003d; Lacey, 2003b).