David Ndii: DP Ruto has no plan to probe Uhuru
Deputy President William Ruto addresses a Kenya Kwanza campaign rally at Kithimu trading centre in Embu county on July 1, 2022.
Deputy President William Ruto's camp has dismissed claims that it's planning to probe President Uhuru Kenyatta if they win the August 9 elections.
DP Ruto's head of economic advisory council Prof David Ndii said on Tuesday evening that their plan to investigate State Capture has nothing to do with individuals but rather efficiency of different institutions to benefit all Kenyans.
Under the ‘Ending State Capture’ sub-topic, Dr Ruto in the Kenya Kwanza Alliance (KKA) manifesto promises to establish, “within 30 days, a quasi-judicial public inquiry to establish the extent of cronyism and state capture in the nation and make recommendations”.
This comes even as Azimio La Umoja One Kenya presidential candidate Raila Odinga's team through ODM Executive Director Oduor Ong'wen hit out at the country's second in command for failing to show commitment in his policy paper on how he will tackle the corruption.
According to Prof Ndii, the State Capture they will be investigating in where state institutions have been repurposed to make policies that benefit people at the top while inflicting on those at the bottom.
"Structural cause of corruption is state capture. What we are going to do about it is to start a state capture inquiry. In Narc when we came in 2002, we tried to do it with Goldenberg issue, which was the biggest corruption issue at the time."
"We are talking about people trying to capture our Judiciary, people weaponising corruption, people capturing power sector among others. The term of reference is can you tell us how our institutions are captured and what we need to do to insulate them from capture. It is not about an individual. We want an institutional analysis," he explained during an interview on Citizen TV.
He assured Kenyans that KKA is fully committed to slaying the dragon of corruption if elected saying that they will fully empower relevant agencies to handle the vice without any interference from the Executive.
"Our theory of change is that the Executive cannot police itself. All democracies create independent oversight authorities because they know that once you give the Executive the authority to spend money, they need somebody else to watch over them," said Prof Ndii
He added: "When you say that the President is going to fight corruption, what you are saying is that he has the power to decide who gets caught and who doesn't get caught. We are saying, our job is to deliver on the economy as we empower the people who are supposed to watch us so that they can do their job. Currently, they are not watching us because they are captured."
Dismissing KKA proposal to tackle graft as playing to the gallery, Mr Ong'wen says that without a commitment from the political leadership, the war on corruption cannot be won.
He argues that there is a need of changing the mindset since those being born found themselves in an ecosystem where graft is being glorified.
"Fighting corruption needs a mindset change. This means that everybody must be part of our society that is inclusive citizenship. We must be able to educate our people on the consequences of corruption. At the moment, corruption is so instilled, we start instilling it in children when they so young like stealing exams for them," said Dr Ong'wen adding that : "create policies, laws and plans that are able to punish corruption."
On how Azimio intends to finance its campaign pledges, Dr Ong'wen says that they will expand the country's production level to create more jobs hence increasing the tax base as well as lower the taxes.
"90 percent of our manifesto is production is going to create jobs. Government can get money only from three sources; taxes, borrowing and grants. The tax regime we have currently is stifling itself because taxes are high with a very narrow base. If you expand the production base, you increase employment and reform tax so that you broaden tax base and lower the taxes," he said.
According to DP Ruto's economic advisor, following the deteriorating state of the economy, KKA will directly inject money into production to jumpstart it and get out of the current crisis.
"The Sh500 billion we are promising to SMEs and agriculture, is coming out of the development budget, we are stopping to do infrastructure and putting the money into production without increasing the debt ceiling," said Prof Ndii.
