William Ruto insists his gov’t won’t tolerate corruption, theft of public funds

President William Ruto has assured Kenyans that there is no room for corruption and theft in his government.

Speaking during an interview with the media at state house, Ruto said,

“I promised Kenyans that in my government there will be no money to be stolen…What we are doing now is putting up mechanisms to stop theft. The greatest enabler that is going to help us overcome corruption is digitization. That is why I embarked on digitizing government services from around 350 now we are at 14,000.”

The head of state added that,

“We were collecting 60 million on e-citizen every day. Today we are collecting 600 million every day. My plan is that by next year we should be collecting minimum 2 billion every day on e-citizen.”

Ruto explained that digitizing government services stops the corrupt and people stealing from the government.

The president also stated that his government respects the independence of other government entities, including the judiciary, Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), and Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP), saying it does not interfere with their operations but provides them support.

Kenya and corruption

Kenya has been marred with corruption cases since independence with public land being grabbed and public finances being misappropriated.

Recently, the controller of budget Dr. Margret Nyakang’o revealed that the salaries of some state officers are tripled and the corruption is happening at the National Treasury, causing the country to lose billions of money.

Additionally, former Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich was acquitted of corruption last week in the Ksh 63 billion Arror and Kimwarer dams scandal that saw Kenyans lose billions to a project that never materialized.

There was no evidence linking Rotich to charges of financial misconduct with Magistrate Nyutu saying the acquittal appeared to be prosecution led. She blamed the prosecution for not leading the case, causing its collapse.

The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) continues to recover millions of stolen public funds and properties in various cases.

Recently, the commission recovered Ksh 47 million stolen from the County Assembly of Homa Bay between 2015 and 2017. EACC disclosed that the amount was stolen through a fraudulent scheme by the assembly’s former clerk Bob Kephat Otieno, his wife, and a local bank manager.