Ringera Deserves More Powers

Justice Aarun Ringera has more enemies than the Devil himself. As the Director and Chief Executive of the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission, he has the most difficult task of digging up and exposing all the dirt in our society; but he has no powers to prosecute those responsible for the unscrupulous corruption and bribery that have now become part and parcel of life in Kenya .But as the most highly paid public servant, there are hundreds of exceedingly qualified lawyers who wish they were in his shoes; and thousands of thieves and crooks who simply wish he was dead. Yet everyone is expecting him to fight corruption even though he is without sufficient arms and ammunition to do so most effectively. Without prosecutorial powers given to him by law, blaming him for inefficiency or favouritism is simply being extremely unfair to the judge.

The enemies of Ringera who feel they are more qualified than him for the top anti corruption job will try to find faults with the manner in which he performs his duties. Some will go as far as accusing him of working with the very people he is supposed to expose. Indeed there is a pending libel case between him and the Standard newspaper which published a highly defamatory article about the judge on June 7^th this year. The article claimed Ringera was President Mwai Kibaki’s hand picked choice to head the anti corruption commission because he would always make sure that no step was taken to expose the real people behind the Anglo Leasing scandal. A week later the paper tried to substantiate the libelous article by accusing the judge and the Attorney General of doing nothing to win cases against Anglo Leasing thieves. The second article had a lot of innuendos.

The method of using defamatory libel to silence newspapers and stopping them from publishing exposes about powerful people is as old as newspaper industry itself. Be that as it may, bold journalists who have facts at their fingertips publish them in order to be damned. They normally use the defence of justification to get away with murder if indeed the facts in their stories can be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Since the writer of the libellous stories published by the Standard is Abdulahi Ahmednasir,who is one of the most respected lawyers in Kenya, it can safely be assumed that he published both the defamatory libel and the libel through innuendo deliberately knowing that he had quite a number of defences he could use in court. Now that Ringera has in fact sued, the defence of qualified privilege could also be used in defence of the newspaper because the matter is of great public interest.

My views about Ringera’s suit against the Standard notwithstanding, I still believe the man needs more powers to be more efficient. Sure enough he has exposed quite a number of important cases involving very eminent people in corruption. But he could not take the cases to court because he does not have prosecutorial powers. The Attorney General seems to think he is the only person, together with the Police working under him, who should have those powers. Without prosecutorial powers Ringera becomes impotent and he has admitted that much. Time has come for Parliament to pass appropriate laws to strengthen Ringera’s hand. Otherwise the whole business of fighting corruption becomes an exercise in futility.

Ringera’s enemies, who feel he earns too much money, simply want his job either for themselves or for their close relatives. The campaign to get rid of Ringera in order to get his fat salary will soon come out in the open with groups of people campaigning for their own men and women. With the spread of corruption in all parts of the country, scores of candidates will be sponsored simply to be used as shields against possible prosecution for corruption. The corrupt obviously want to have an equally corrupt head of the anti corruption Commission to protect them; and if he or she comes from a certain village, then the entire village will swim in the sea of corruption without any fear of either drowning or being exposed by the ACC.

Ringera’s job is in greater danger of vanishing when it is exposed to party politics and political competition between PNU and ODM. No matter how neutral Ringera claims to be, ODM will always see him as part of Gema and PNU. When they talk of equitable distribution of top jobs the director of anti corruption Commission is certainly one of the positions both parties will be fighting to acquire. The harm caused by the politicization of that post could be catastrophic to the country. Unfortunately whenever Ringera is discussed in Parliament in future, that temptation will always be there.

Whether Ringera keeps his job or not his office requires prosecutorial powers. As a matter of fact the Director of the anti corruption commission should have enough powers to prosecute the Attorney General himself if it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt that the AG is indeed corrupt. Among the people who will fight Ringera tooth and nail are the corrupt people he is in the process of exposing. By getting rid of Ringera they remain free to do whatever they want in the expansive world of graft. Rather than rushing to court every time his job is challenged, however, Ringera would do better to engage in a fruitful exercise of public debate about corrupt powerful individuals.

Right now the anti corruption boss should join the Standard group of newspapers in exposing powerful Anglo Leasing personalities who have sued Kenya in European courts to get back the money which was returned to the Treasury. According to Martaha Karua one such case in Geneva has already been lost by the Attorney General. In other words, the Anglo Leasing racketeers are still at it and yet their names have never been exposed to the public. Rather than rushing to court to protect his job and reputation Ringera will win the public support he deserves if he can be courageous enough to name names of the real powerful people behind the Anglo Leasing scandal.