Proposed law seeks to rein in conflicted public servants
President William Ruto chairs a Cabinet meeting at State House, Nairobi, on February 28, 2023. Public servants face tighter wealth checks after the Cabinet approved the Conflict of Interest Bill, 2023 that seeks to stop employees from using their offices to illegally plunder public resources.
What you need to know:
- The Bill seeks to provide a framework for the management of conflict of interest that could arise in the line of duty of government officials.
Public servants face tighter wealth checks after the Cabinet approved the Conflict of Interest Bill, 2023 that seeks to stop employees from using their offices to illegally plunder public resources.
The Bill seeks to provide a framework for the management of conflict of interest that could arise in the line of duty of government officials.
The Cabinet said the law would mark the end of public servants pursuing their own private and commercial interests at the expense of their official duties.
“As part of the administration’s agenda on entrenching the ethos of good governance as part of our national life, the Cabinet considered and approved the Conflict of Interest Bill, 2023,” the Cabinet announced after sitting on Tuesday.
It went on: “The proposed law will herald a new dawn in the management of public affairs by introducing strong legal safeguards against real, apparent, or potential conflict between the private interests of public servants on one hand and the public interest and their official duties on the other.”
Many ordinary and high-ranking government officials own private businesses and often use their positions to influence the awards of lucrative government tenders to their businesses or those of their cronies, often leading to the procurement of substandard goods and services.
The National Treasury had promised the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year that it would submit the Bill to Parliament before the end of the year for approval as part of fiscal reforms aimed at sealing financial leakages in the public sector.
Loopholes
The IMF had, however, argued the draft Bill had many loopholes that the Treasury ought to have filled before submitting it to Parliament. It noted that the Bill failed to address the scope of asset declaration by public servants and how the declared wealth would be verified.
“Weaknesses remain in the current draft Conflict of Interest law relating to the underlying system for asset declaration (scope of coverage, publication of asset declaration information, and mechanisms for validating accuracy of submissions), creating a risk that adoption of new regulations in their current form fails to improve accountability and integrity,” said the lender.
The lender said that while the government’s progress in preparing the draft law was notable, substantial changes were needed to align the draft law with principles of good practice especially relating to asset declarations.
“Staff encourages the authorities to act rapidly to introduce necessary modifications regarding collection and publication of asset declarations prior to submission of the draft bill to Parliament,” said the IMF.
The Cabinet also reviewed the previous Cabinet decision of 1971 that adopted the Ndegwa Commission Report of 1971’s recommendation that public servants be given nearly unlimited scope to engage in private interests and commercial affairs.
Many commentators believe that the report was made with a preconceived intention of giving leeway to public servants to engage freely in private businesses notwithstanding any conflict of interest that may arise when discharging their official duties.
The Bill is part of major reforms aimed at cleaning the public sector from corruption and securing billions of shillings that are lost annually due to looting of public resources.
Another such reform is a proposed amendment to the Leadership and Integrity Act, 2012 that seeks to have public entities recruiting staff to forward the names of shortlisted candidates to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) for vetting within seven days for approvals.
In the changes contained in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, 2022, public entities will be mandated to appoint public officers based on the recommendations made by the EACC.
The Treasury will also from this year publish reports of compliance with the disclosure of beneficial owners of winners of lucrative government tenders every six months as the State steps up war on rampant corruption in public procurement.
“By end-June 2023, and every six months thereafter, we will publish a report on compliance with the publication of beneficial ownership information,” the Treasury told IMF.
The government in April last year issued revised standard tender documents where winning bidders are now required to submit beneficial ownership information as a pre-condition to the signing of the respective procurement contract.
