Africa-Press – Kenya. President William Ruto has revealed that Parliamentary committees demand bribes to write favourable reports and look the other way when grilling members of the national and county governments
Speaking at the opening of the National Devolution Conference on Wednesday, August 13, Ruto blasted Parliament over the asking for the bribes, asserting that the Legislature needed to be held to account.
Ruto was responding to sentiments made by Senate Speaker Amason Kingi, who had called for governors and their county governments to be held to account over their dealings.
“While I agree with the sentiments expressed by the Speaker of the Senate, and he has made a solid statement on holding governors and county governments to account, the Legislature must also be held to account,” he stated.
“Something is going on in our Legislature that we must call out. There is money being demanded, from the Executive (governors and ministers), especially those who appear before our Houses of Parliament. It is not possible that committees of Parliament demand to be bribed, demand to be paid for them to write reports or look the other way for what is happening in either the national or county governments,” Ruto exposed.
Consequently, he urged both Speakers — Moses Wetang’ula of the National Assembly and Amason Kingi of the Senate — to take action, while still emphasising the need for an all-of-society approach.
At the same time, Ruto criticised the Judiciary, highlighting the granting of anticipatory bail by the judicial arm of the government as an obstacle to tackling graft.
“I want to ask the Judiciary not to be a haven for the corrupt and hide behind judicial decisions. We have innovation that is only available in Kenya, which allows a corrupt person not to be prosecuted,” he stated.
“We have something called anticipatory bail. It is a Kenyan innovation that takes us backwards. Someone who has stolen public funds, going to court and getting anticipatory bail makes it impossible for such a person to be arrested and prosecuted,” Ruto said.
As per Ruto, the granting of anticipatory bail did not support the fight against graft, calling for a review of the issuance of the bail.
A previous report by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) revealed that Kenya loses an estimated Ksh608 billion annually due to graft, representing 7.6 per cent of the nations GDP.
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