You have been appointed as head of the Civil Service in order to help fight corruption from inside. What needs to be done and how are you going to do it?
I think the fight against corruption is primarily been driven by the demand of Kenya people. They are thoroughly tired at all levels of society of having to pay extra for services which they have already been taxed on. The coincidence with the conditions set up by the Bretton Woods institutions is fortunate. I would like to emphasize that the effort against corruption is primarily driven by a grassroots concern. We think that the police force needs to be strengthened, the corrupt system has to be ended, interference with the due process has to be stopped, and there should be no favoritism. I think it is far less difficult then a lot of people have imagined if we stand firm at all levels on this debate.
How are you planning on doing it? Are you planning on sacking a lot of people, on talking to them or what?, because apparently you have carte blanche.
The public service position is covered by the constitution. We operate within the law. I will apply the law. There are statutes in Kenya as there are in any country. Where there is wrongdoing the forces of law will be instructed to take action. This has not always been the case in the past. There has been laxity and a willingness to allow things to slip. That willingness is not here anymore.
There are several scandals going on. One of them, the Goldenberg scam, is as old as seven years, and it has seriously tarnished the image of some of the Ministers. How are these items going to be tackled?
Indeed the Goldenberg scandal has gone on for a long time showing glimpses on what is inappropriate. I need not comment on the matter. My intention is to stand firm on the issue of applying the law without fear or favor as I conduct the job that is before me. Besides, talking about cases which are in court goes against the law.
One of the local newspapers stated that one of the reasons why President Moi had chosen you for this post was because you had no tribal connections and you need not compromise with anybody in order to do your job better. Can you comment on this?
Being a minority in a country that has had a colonial past, it is true that there is no tribe that I belong to; I do not have any ethnic interests. But that is not why I would not compromise. I would not compromise because that is not my principle. I have no patrons that I am serving for some hidden agenda or favor. I have been given a very clear mandate to head the public service, serve as secretary to the cabinet. This is defined under the law. That is enough for me to do what is required.
You are here to do a difficult job. People seem to have a lot of trust in what you are doing and what you are going to do, and the Bretton Woods institutions have praised your selection as the Head of the Civil Service. When do you think they might start helping out Kenya again?
I think that we have to enter into further negotiations, which are anticipated in mid
September (1999). I hope before this, there will be the basis for constructive discussions. There were talks about talks but we cannot at this stage do more than what has been decreed by the board of the IMF. It is not up to Kenya. When we go to the meetings in September, the Kenyan delegation will go with a plan and hopefully with evidence of the seriousness of the Government to address the problems.
Kenya has been without this kind of international aid for about 10 years and, despite the present economic situation, you have managed to continue developing. Do you think that Kenya really needs aid at this stage of its development?
The re-establishment of relations with the IMF is fairly important at this stage. The Government commitment to procedures for the resumption of an ease up would signal and open a door to a lot of other financial assistance and investment which, we believe, is very important. It is a stamp of confidence that we need to get. For all of that it is not so much the money, it dismisses all forms of assistance. My own perception is that we are not doing this because the donors are telling us to do it. This is not an initiative of the IMF or the World Bank. This is an initiative that is coming from this country. It is a deep desire of this country to try and address the public service, corruption, and change. We are moving into the next century. This is a very well positioned, geographically favored, human resources blessed country. We have been knocked around by colonialism, by cold war, and a number of issues. We cannot be left behind. We have got to get up and get going as Kenyans for our own sake.
You are mostly known as the former head of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Can you give us a summary of what you accomplished in your previous post and what do you think is going to happen to Kenya wildlife now that you will not be there anymore?
Kenya Wildlife Service is something I was privileged
to head from its inception in 1990. It became quite
a success story. It overreached the plans of the
early 90's which were too ambitious and the disruption
when I resigned in 1994 prevented the consolidation
of successive schemes. Over the next five years,
Kenya Wildlife Services got into financial difficulties
because of lack of financial discipline and lack
of management. When I came back to KWS last year
it had some problems, tourism was at an all time
low and for the period of the nine months that I
was there, I was able to reverse it. The end-of-year
financial adjustment was completed in June. The
budget deficit was consolidated to the budget itself
and we were beginning to see where to put the money.
The infrastructure was restored. We have got airplanes
flying in. Wildlife had not particularly suffered
in the five years. Wildlife has changed because
of the growth of human activities, which is related
to the growth of human population. There are basically
less and less opportunities for wildlife outside
the national parks. |
This is caused by the presence of more the people with access to land, developing through small scale farming, ranching etc, whereas ten years ago there were no people there. So the pressure on the wildlife is from the population growth. Many of our people are dependent on subsistence agriculture. They are settling in small holdings, 5 acres, 10 acres, where there used to be wildlife. I see no reason to believe that my being at or being removed from the KWS will have an impact on the wildlife within the protected area. My hope is that being in this role in the government will bring greater exchange of ideas from different sectors, and we will see the integration of policy and land use issues that will include wildlife, water catchments, etc.. I have not closed myself to what is an important part of tourism based on wildlife. The national parks are as much a part of the national asset as are our foreign exchange resources. We cannot ignore the security of our reserve in the Central Bank anymore then we can really afford to ignore the security and the basis of tourism.
Do you think that, due to the growth of population and the need for more arable land, wildlife will at one point be reduced to staying in just National Parks?
That, to a large extent, is the story that has pertained in a large part of the world and there is no reason to believe that Kenya's wildlife should dominate the country. Kenya's wildlife has been allocated 8% of the surface of the country, and a lot of this land is not arable. The destruction of catchment areas has an impact on water supply, on hydro electric power etc. There are a lot of reasons why the government of the day should stand firm on conservation.
You are very much aware that the international image of Kenya has deteriorated in the past due to different reasons. Some of these things had nothing to do with Kenya like the bombing of the US Embassy. There has been talks about corruption -which is rampant in some other African countries. From the position that you are holding right now, what efforts can do in order to clean that tarnished image?
There is an image problem. The way to deal with an image problem is to change the image. We can't do that by rhetoric, we have to do that through actions. I think that investors, both private and public, see a secure environment where they can make money, where they have the protection of the law in any issue that may develop, where things are transparent and where there is openness. In a part of a fast moving world, people forget very quickly the images and they must move on. We cannot say we have all those things if we have not got them. I think the image of insecurity has to be addressed by reducing it. For instance if we have 9 car- jacks in one evening in Nairobi, and we check the crime report for Johannesburg the same day, it will probably be over 150. And yet we worry because we have 9. The same day in another part of Africa where business is booming, they have over 15 times the number of car-jacks we have here. However South Africans are not wringing their hands, hey keep things in perspective. Despite that South Africa is still a great country. Here we have 9 car-jacks, probably there will be none soon. We have got to get moving. It's not a question of always talking about the badness, there is goodness also. Kenya is a hub and a critical part of Africa, it has phenomenal potential. We cannot always get everything right. If you get things wrong it does not mean you cannot get things right.
You are also a very well known paleoanthropologist. Why is Kenya so important in this field? Is it still considered the cradle of human kind?
Chance had it that when humans first evolved it was in this part of the world that is now called Africa. Camels came from North America. Kangaroos were existing in Australia. It had no implications at the time. There was an opportunity in East Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya because of the geological conditions of the Rift Valley to discover fossils in the early stages of our ancestry at a time in this century when people became very interested. These were discovered 100 years ago. It is just that the discoveries in East Africa came at a time when the world was science-oriented, looking for possible scientific outcomes.
Are you still active?
My wife and daughter are still quite active.
What are your immediate future plans?
I think we have to give it a fair shot at the task that is before us. We need to re-establish confidence in Kenya. I do not think it is an insurmountable challenge. I think the President is very committed. There seems to be genuine willingness to make a fresh start, to tackle these questions. This message is driven by the President and his government. There is a new initiative. We have got to fix them now. It is not what "we are going to do now", but what we need to do. |
