Corruption is fighting Ringera back

The countless enemies of Aaron Ringera are up in arms. Daggers have been drawn against the KACC boss for more reasons than meets the eye. His invisible, yet extremely powerful, enemies include tribalism, party politics, professional jealousy and, last but not least, corruption itself. For the whole week now the entire country, led by the Fourth Estate, has buried its head in the sand and totally declined to listen to reason on the need to renew Ringera’s contract. Making more noise than anyone else, Parliament itself has condemned the retired Judge’s reappointment as illegal. That, despite the fact that the august House is full of lawyers, who simply refused to be logical and instead became so openly partisan, tribal and unreasonable.

The claim that the reappointment of Ringera was illegal was based on either the ignorance of the law or a deliberate misinterpretation of it. The relevant part of the Anti Corruption and Economic Crimes Act, under which the KACC comes, was expertly discussed in a well written article in the Daily Nation by the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Mutula Kilonzo, who reveals that no law was broken by Mwai Kibaki when he reappointed Ringera to serve the second five year term. What is shocking is the number of lawyers, including the KACC Board Chairman, Okongo Omogeni, who have ganged up to oppose the reappointment of Ringera. Did these lawyers tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Facts don’t support their case.

The fact that Mwai Kibaki broke no law does not mean he behaved in the most upright, decent or honest manner. His act of ignoring the KACC Board simply means he is an extremely stubborn, pigheaded and may be very obdurate old man who is drunk with power and does not hesitate to exhibit it. Doing so, however, does not mean he is breaking any law. So the Board members have every reason to be upset, but they should not do so by exposing their ignorance of the very law that puts them there. Parliament is making a lot of noise and getting very disconcerted for nothing.

The law does not say that the Legislature has to be consulted before the Director is reappointed to serve a second term. According to the law Parliament is only involved in approving candidates to be hired by the Commission. Ringera had already gone through that procedure before he was hired. Something is seriously very wrong when the whole Parliament becomes embarrassingly so worked up at the taxpayers expense. The LSK is taking the matter to Court but Mutula has already interpreted the law for them.

For the short time that the KACC Director has served Kenya he has made very many powerful enemies including Minister in the current Government. Among the people he has recommended to the Attorney General for persecution are three Ministers in the Kibaki-Raila Government and 58 Chief Executives of Public Corporations. Ringera should now publicly announce the names of the people he wants the Attorney General to prosecute. That way we shall know who his enemies really are. The biggest problem with Ringera is that he has no prosecutorial powers and without those powers he will always appear to be incompetent whereas in fact the man is indeed being frustrated by the big sharks he is trying to expose and prosecute. There are very many Kenyans who believe Ringera should be given more powers to prosecute rather than being shown the door.

Among the people who would like Ringera to lose his job is Rashmi Chamalal Kamani who is involved in the Anglo Lasing scandal including some wanting security related contracts. This man is so crafty that not even Ringera can trace him. All that Ringera can do is to offer an award of 100,000/- to anyone with useful information about Kamani. Whereas Kamani has been forced by Ringera to go underground it is not conceivable that the later is sitting on his laurel waiting for the Anglo Leasing scandal to vanish in thin air. Obviously Kamani is fighting back and he is fighting back using the most powerful men and women in and outside the Government and Parliament.

The next powerful man who can easily do Ringera in is Yagnesh Mohanlal Devani whom Ringera exposed as the man behind the Triton scandal involving more than seven billion shillings. The amount of money is so staggering that any of the beneficiaries exposed by Ringera would do anything to make sure the retired Judge is sent home as soon as possible. There is little doubt that Ringera has achieved more than the Fourth Estate in Kenya would like to acknowledge. Indeed rather than joining forces with those who would like to get rid of Ringera, journalists should support him as the one man always ready to help them do exposes that would put crooks in trouble.

Big money in the hands of crooks is not the only enemy fighting Ringera. Tribalism is also fighting him. Many tribal chiefs look at Ringera’s job as a feather in Gema people’s cap. Jobs in Kenya are so “tribalised” that it is almost a shame to hear even the most highly educated people talking of how many ministers their tribes have, or how many judges and how many heads of parastatals their tribes have. The larger the tribe the more top public official bosses it is supposed to have. Ringera’s job happens to be the most lucrative public office of the land.

Every tribe with anyone on the bench thinks it is time for their son or daughter to occupy that office. Ringera’s achievements notwithstanding, he will always be opposed by tribalists trying to get their own people at the KACC helm. The other reason Ringera is opposed by tribalists is the perception that he is there to protect his own people from facing the long arm of the law no matter how corrupt they are. Tribalists therefore want their own man or woman in that important office to be protected from the law as they continue engaging in corrupt activities.

Besides big money and tribalism, Ringera’s enemies include party rivalries. Ringera is perceived to be a PNU supporter regardless of his real political conviction. This makes him the dart board of the ODM missiles. No matter what he does, he will be always a victim of the most lethal attacks from ODM MPs. This trend will continue until the office is occupied by an ODM candidate. How beneficial that candidate will be to the party is not easy to imagine. But ODM is made up of Kenyan politicians who suffer from the same societal weakness as the rest of the country. Many of them are as corrupt as PNU leaders. Professional jealousy is yet another enemy facing Ringera. The only way he can fight that is to be even more competent. But first he has to keep his job.