NAIROBI, Kenya, Apr 19- The Government has expressed concern that an unusually high number of economic criminals and their accomplices may buy their way into Parliament and country assemblies in this year’s General election.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr. Fred Matiang’i told a gathering of bishops and senior clergy of the Anglican Church in Nairobi that intelligence pointed to a possibility of up to 40 percent of elective seats being won by criminals relying on massive bribery and suspect funds to win elective seats.
“If we are not careful as Kenyans, by the time we are done with this electoral cycle, we would’ve laundered criminals into our elective institutions– even up to about 40 percent. These include money launderers, “wash wash” players, drug dealers and others because they’re the only ones who can access that amount of money,” he said.
He warned that electing a large of criminals and their surrogates will expose the country to bad laws and thicken the nexus between corruption and bad leadership.
Such leaders were likely to support laws that favoured criminal enterprises and that weaken oversight bodies, he cautioned.
He also drew linkages between economic crimes such as trade-in fake money (wash wash), gun running, money laundering and early campaigns saying only such activities could fund prolonged political campaigns and heavy expenditure.
The CS further said the disregard of the laws regulating campaigns and abuse of social media were among the serious threats to securing the General election and faulted the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and other regulatory agencies for failing to strictly enforce regulations on official campaign window.
The CS challenged the church to enhance voter education to help Kenyans make informed choices during the elections and hold their leaders accountable after assuming office.
He regretted that the threat posed by corruption and other pertinent issues were not being adequately canvassed by the current political line-ups.
He cited the recent hoarding of fuel by unscrupulous private companies, which he described as “institutionalized cartelism” and lamented that this was made possible by the collapse of the National Oil Corporation of Kenya (NOCK) due to corruption.
The CS took issue with rampant abuse of social media and misuse of technology and blamed it for exacerbating the spread of hate speech and negative ethnicity. He however said the government will protect free speech and the right to expression.
ICT CS Joe Mucheru who also addressed the Conference said many parts of the country have access to reliable phone networks and that the Ministry was working closely with the IEBC to ensure all polling stations were reliably covered to enable them to transmit elections electronically.
He said the Government had no intention of interfering with the IEBC transmission of elections including access to the electoral body IT servers.
On security, CS Matiang’i said the clashes in Marsabit are linked to political and ethnic profiling and balkanisation.
He announced that subject to approval by the National Security Council, the Government is likely to embark on a special operation involving special units in Marsabit after the lapse of the 30-days window pleaded by local leaders to give peace talks and mediation a chance.
The event was also attended by the Attorney General Prof. Kihara Kariuki and the Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai.
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