Category Archives: Kenya judiciary

White Collar Wonderland Part II

Part I was about the inability to prosecute any big shot for committing a white collar crime and this was confirmed by Monday’s stunning court decision that undoes months of Goldenberg hearings.

– There’s an on-going Goldenberg trial in the high court, and the details are so complex, that it is hard to imagine how the judge is able to keep track of the proceedings.
– More ministers behaving badly and probably unworried about the consequences.
– Kamlesh Pattni appears to have mastered the art of stalling court processes.

Jobs

Kenya Airways
– manager taxation and fuel
– manager technical projects/manager business enhancement
– photojournalist
– licensed engineer
– equipment operator
– graduate engineer trainees
Apply to the group HRD 19002 Nairobi by 16 August.

Deputy commissioner internal affairs at the Kenya Revenue Authority. D/L is 18 August.

Regional business development manager Kenya at SAP. Apply to cv@vertexsa.com by 8 August.

Commercial development managers (2) at the Standard/KTN Group. Apply to the HRM 30080 Nairobi by August 10.

White Collar Wonderland

Last Friday, the directors of the collapsed Euro Bank were acquitted of charges in a complex case of fraudulently accepting a deposit from the Postal Corporation of Kenya.

This extends a long trend of poor prosecutions resulting in a series of acquittals in high-profile corruption cases.

What does this portend for suspects in Anglo Leasing, Goldenberg, recently-suspended heads of parastatals, and others charged with white-collar corruption crimes in Kenya? They may not have much to worry about beyond their names being forever linked with graft cases.

Perry Mason problem
Former DPP Murgor complained for a long time that it was unfair and demoralizing for his prosecution staff to earn so much less than KACA investigators. And like the fictitious prosecutor Hamilton Burger, who lost every case to superstar-lawyer Perry Mason, government prosecutors end up facing the cream of the Kenyan legal society who all the major accused people are able to hire with their deep pockets. Along the way, they may suffer a few setbacks but the high-powered defence lawyers mostly win their cases. e.g. Ketan Somaia and his co-accused were sent to Kamiti for a few months (and spending a good chunk of time in a Nairobi hospital) but their convictions for stealing from the National Bank was eventually overturned.

Complex cases
Better lawyers aside, most cases are difficult to understand, let alone to prove. In the words of Vice President Moody Awori – “who is my accuser, on what charge?” – the principals are far removed from the crime and the crime itself is not easily defined. It is easy to prosecute a case where a policeman asks for, and receives a 5,000 shilling bribe from a motorist who later shows up and testifes in court against the policemen, armed with evidence supporting the bribe. But the Anglo Leasing and Goldeberg are complicated since the prime movers signed almost no documents. The few fingerprints to be found are those of their juniors who processed the dubious payments to non-existent companies. Murgor/Wako have had to terminate and withdraw many corruption cases that their prosecutors had presented in court because they later realized that the charges could not be sustained.

Lawyers vs. Bankers
The court process is not speedy especially where assets are involved. E.g. All Banks incur thousands of shillings monthly in legal fees often in cases where straight forward loan-default cases are tied up in courts awaiting hearing dates or where injunctions are filed, allegations of bank fraud, excessive penalties & interest are all raised by unscrupulous lawyers to muddy the case. lawyers are able to stretch cases for several years, to point where the legal cost exceed the loan costs and force banks to surrender by settling with their clients. The lesson here is the longer the court process, the better the chance of acquittal or dropping of charges

Conclusion
So it unlikely that people accused of corruption will ever be convicted. It may now be easier to prosecute people under the Public Officers Ethics Act, but as Mutula Kilonzo says on Crossfire, the law came into effect in 2005, and cannot be applied retroactively.

A to Z Referendum

a
apathy Voter turnout was less than half of what was expected in most areas. Fatigue over the whole matter coupled with the cost of traveling hundreds of kilometers to vote, in an insignificant election, only a month before the expensive Christmas holidays, transport fare hikes, meant that if you couldn’t vote where you lived, you didn’t travel. Presidential elections are usually held in December, during the school holidays and just after Christmas.

b
boredom Cooped in the house for four straight days and TV was non-stop referendum news. See movies

c
clowns too many to mention but the roll includes; (i) the government spokesman who despite having nothing to say, couldn’t resist the opportunity provided by having the election media centre in his office building (KICC) (ii) at least two MP’s who showed up without ID or voter’s cards but demanded to vote.

d
duty Kenyans from all walks of life turned out to perform their civic duty. Turnout was low, but the result showed a true picture of the Kenyan electorate see gullible

e
emergency plans certain donor bodies (e.g. OXFAM) advised staff to avoid Kenya and even set up emergency chains of command and communication just in case things when wrong. Some international banks moved operations staff into hotels in downtown Nairobi so they could be near their office even if there was chaos around town. DT Dobie withdrew all Mercedes cars from their showroom window.

f
Fox News Kenya Royal Media’s Citizen has replaced the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) as the pro-establishment media house of choice. They had round the clock coverage of the election coupled with patriotic songs (both on radio and TV) while their Leader, was the only newspaper to endorse an election position (For a strong Yes!, and even published their opinion poll predicting a slim Yes victory.

The songs played on Citizen are hypnotic and catchy choir melodies, with children singing the choruses, with phrases such as;

kenya kenya kenya
nchi yetu
yenye mafanikio
tupendane, tusaidiane
kenya kenya kenya
Nchi yetu
ukabila tuondoe
tushirikiane sote pamoja

g
gullible Voters in Central and Nyanza who repeatedly produced +97% votes favoring their leaders, and not on the merits of the draft itself.

h
hongera means praise in Kiswahili to all the citizens, and police of Kenya. (i) Citizens for voting peacefully and for putting up with voting hitches and delays. (ii) The Kenya Police force for maintaining peaceful elections around the country, and also for enabling the peaceful staging of two simultaneous political rallies, just hundreds of metres apart in Nairobi on Saturday.

i
incidences catchy word repeatedly used by endless radio hosts when they probably mean to use the words ‘incidents.’

k
Kenyan I now feel like one after voting for the first time ever (shareholder AGM’s don’t count). It’s a shame that I could not vote before when I was abroad

l
line: In Kenya, you should never ever join a line, unless you know where it is going to end. I have learnt this the hard way – at some banking halls, and offices e.g. of KPLC and Kenya Revenue Authority. On voting day, I stood in the first short line I found at the polling station for 30 minutes only to later realize that voters had been assigned to different lines (leading to different voting rooms) based on their names.

m
media the media gave some good coverage. However two incidents troubled me (i) the election was peaceful in most parts of the country, yet near the end of the long day, one TV station devoted over 15 minutes to some stone throwing at one Nairobi location. The media should not glorify sporadic acts which are likely to incite similar incidents. – it’s the reason sports broadcasts don’t show streakers or fans who run onto the pitch (ii) just because the government spokesman is in front of a microphone is no reason to let him talk non-stop – cut him off and do you own (more reliable) reporting. Blooper of the day yesterday was a morning radio host who at 7:30 a.m. asked an on-site reporter if there were any preliminary results!

movies
Watched very good ‘Hotel Rwanda’ and ‘Crash.’ Also watched Spanglish and some other forgettable DVD’s.

n
nite a late entry: as in the Carnivore, who threw a bash called the referendum ‘soul’ night. I Didn’t attend.

o
over as in we hope it’s all over, and can we move on to the economy, service delivery, infrastructure and growth

p
Patriotism see Fox News Kenya

q
queues see lines

r
Resign Like FEMA officials after hurricane Katrina, some people dropped the ball on voting day – and while its not a Kenyan thing to resign, some non- politicians need to resign including; (i) the attorney general and his team for the incoherent draft they produced (ii) all civil servants (identified by KNHRC) who openly defied the code of conduct for public officers and campaigned using their offices (iii) the entire constitution of Kenya review commission (CKRC) – for wasting millions in the name of non-existent civic education, and because their 15 billion shilling gravy train must come to an end after 8 years.

The electoral commission of Kenya gets a pass because overall the election was well carried out but they could have extended both the registration period for voters and hours for voting beyond 5 p.m.

s
smart most voters are smart enough to bring reading materials knowing they may line up for hours, but some (old KC’s) even brought folding stools with them.

t
trash over the last three years we have followed the debate on the draft, sometimes buying two or three newspapers a day just to keep up. Now old newspapers are garbage, which I’m told I can sell for only 20 shillings a kilo. I may have about 15 kilos to clear.

u
uncertainty three types I felt (i) would I be able to vote with a passport? (ii) Should we line up according to names indicated at polling station? (iii) Was my name really on the voter’s roll as it was my first ever vote?

v
violence see media

w
“who’s who’s” included in the voters at polling both around the country were all manner of leaders from the president, MP’s business leaders etc. At my polling station we had Joe Wanjui, Titus Mbathi, Bob Kioko, among others. Still, it’s not a place to network or you may get (violently) thrown out for trying to influence other voters.

x
a simple mark to check one of two boxes on ballot cards. Yet there were so many spoilt ballots because many (literate) villagers did not understand how to vote. See resign

y
yellow church leaders and (most) civil society organizations for failing to take a stand on a very complex document. It was too complicated for me and for many rural people who voted, and yet these ‘experts’ just folded their arms and let the dice roll.

z
zero internet access for most of the weekend. One disadvantage of a mobile phone, and not having a landline, is a dependence on having to use cyber cafés for internet usage – and most of these were closed for several days.

(Non) Banking Challenges in Kenya

In an interview with the Financial Post, Kenya Commercial Bank’s Chief Executive Terry Davidson lists the four main challenges facing the banking sector as:

(i) Uncertainty over the Banking Bill: Implementation of the “in-duplum” rule, which, if applied retroactively for several years back will wipe out many local Banks.
(ii) Infrastructure: the expensive and poor conditions power, roads and communications needs to be addressed – this will reduce the cost of banking and eventually lead to banking costs for account holders
(iii) Insecurity: KCB spends Kshs. 15 million a month on security guards, which is not prudent. If the security situation improved, Kenyan banks would not have to pay as much for security.
(iv) Judiciary: It takes years for cases to be heard, and all banks have backlogs of pending cases, while others are postponed endlessly.

Bad Timing

Just 24 hours after the Government announced that they would cut back on buying monster trucks the Ministry of Justice received ten new ones for its governance and justice program.