In Africa, corruption doesn't go without notice anymore

NAIROBI, Kenya —

Carol Wanjiku's latest run-in with petty corruption occurred when a policeman saw her double-park near her house. Instead of issuing a ticket or a warning, she says, the policeman demanded "something little." For the $2 or so that she handed over, he let her go.

"It happens all the time," says Wanjiku, a 30-year-old software programmer, who also remembered the final step for getting a license plate for the car. "You want your number plate? You won't get it unless you give 'something little.' You want to get your passport? Same thing."

The day she paid "something little" for having double-parked, she picked up a newspaper and read about something big: allegations of payoffs and kickbacks worth hundred of millions of dollars that reached up through Kenya's government, all the way to the president.

Graft has long been a part of Kenya, but this time it might include a new twist: significant penalties for at least some of the people suspected of involvement.

Unlike in the past, the country's newspapers and television networks have reported extensively on the scandals, thousands of people have marched in the first anti-corruption protests in memory, three Cabinet ministers have resigned under pressure and prosecutions seem possible.

That is a glimmer of change for Kenya and all of Africa.

In Nigeria, leaders have endorsed an international audit of the country's oil industry, its main source of income, and the finance minister has created a reserve account thanks to some of the windfall profits from the rise in oil prices.

The former president of the country's senate is scheduled to stand trial on charges of accepting a $400,000 bribe from the education minister to approve a budget that included unnecessary or unexplained expenditures.

The governor of an oil-producing state is in jail on charges of money laundering.

In South Africa, former Deputy President Jacob Zuma is expected to stand trial on charges that he accepted a bribe to thwart an investigation of an arms purchase from France. Eight members of parliament, most of them members of the ruling African National Congress, have pleaded guilty to misusing travel vouchers. In Zambia, former President Frederick Chiluba is on trial on charges of embezzling $500,000 in state funds. The government has filed a civil claim in Britain alleging that Chiluba and 17 other former officials stole $23 million during Chiluba's decade in office.

Graft seems almost endemic to much of Africa. The latest index of perceptions of corruption, compiled by the private group Transparency International, found that 12 of the 22 countries ranked most corrupt were in Africa.

Ranked most corrupt was Chad, in Central Africa, which recently altered a law guaranteeing that most of its newly realized oil wealth would be used to reduce poverty and diverted the money to fight a rebellion in the country's east. The World Bank, which helped finance a $4 billion oil pipeline, responded by suspending $124 million in loans.

Corruption siphons off an estimated $148 billion per year in Africa, or 25 percent of the combined incomes of the continent's nations, according to the African Union. That loss deprives governments of money for essential programs.

Kenya, lacking the oil and diamonds of other African countries, devised procurement schemes. The government makes payments for phantom goods or services to businessmen who kick back a portion to public officials.

That system is at the heart of two current scandals. In what the Kenyan media call the Goldenberg affair, the Finance Ministry paid a company as much as $600 million in incentives to export apparently nonexistent gold and diamonds.

A commission of inquiry has forwarded to the attorney general for possible prosecution the names of 14 people, including the finance minister at the time, George Saitoti. In the "Anglo Leasing scandal," officials in the home-affairs and finance ministries are suspected of paying a phony company inflated fees to broker major projects for a new passport system and a forensics laboratory, along with other projects.

Those deals were canceled when it emerged that Anglo Leasing & Finance was a shell company. The scale of theft is unclear, but as questions began to be asked, millions of dollars unexpectedly reappeared in Kenya's central bank.

Goldenberg dates to the early 1990s, during the 24-year presidency of Daniel T. arap Moi, though a recently released government report says it is unclear whether Moi was involved. Anglo Leasing began under Moi but continued after Mwai Kibaki was elected president in 2002.

Some of the allegations seem ripped from a spy thriller. Information about Anglo Leasing was contained in secret documents and clandestine tape recordings compiled by John Githongo, Kibaki's permanent secretary in charge of governance and ethics who fled to Britain last year after allegedly receiving death threats.

Githongo, whose records made their way into Kenyan newspapers last month, maintains that Kibaki knew about the graft. As the pressure from Anglo Leasing built this month, Kibaki released the report on Goldenberg in an attempt to deflect attention, his critics say.

Despite questions about Kibaki's involvement, there have been few calls for him to resign. The ministers of finance, education and energy have stepped aside.

In a sense, it was Kibaki, 74, who took the extraordinary actions that now threaten his government. He appointed Githongo, encouraged a free press and built hopes for change.

"Kibaki has thrown away the goodwill the people gave him," says Seth Onguti, a 51-year-old education programmer with the Aga Khan Foundation. "He had a real opportunity."

The scandals are all the more galling, Onguti says, given the poor state of the country's schools and roads.

Onguti wants pressure exerted on Kibaki's government to come clean or resign.

One source of pressure is the World Bank, which has delayed $260 million in loans for education and health projects. Colin Bruce, the bank's director in Kenya, said it had placed stricter conditions on its loans to Kenya since 2001. Two loans that have gone forward are designed to help prevent corruption.

One, for $25 million, will help with matters "as basic as ensuring the process of preparing the budget is transparent, that there are no extra-budgetary expenditures, that auditing systems work," Bruce said. The other, for $120 million, is to improve controls at border posts, the port of Mombassa and other places in the transportation network.

Overall, he said, he is encouraged by the country's response to the latest scandals. "I've referred to this as a high point but not the end point," he said. "The government clearly needs to do more."